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James Debono
Middle-income earners and salaried employees are the main contributors to the country’s exchequer, according to MaltaToday’s analysis of figures presented to parliament on Monday.
Practically half of all income tax paid in 2004, 49 per cent, was gathered from middle-income groups declaring salaries ranging from Lm6,000 to Lm12,000.
The self-employed category however, emerged as one of the least taxed categories, in 2004 contributing Lm14.5 million – a mere 13 per cent of the total amount of income tax collected by the exchequer.
According to the statistics, 38 per cent of income tax contributions were collected from those earning between Lm6,000 and Lm10,000. Only 5,491 taxpayers declared incomes of more than Lm12,000, but their contributions amounted to 36.5 per cent of income tax gathered in 2004.
Only 806 or 14.7 per cent of the richest income group were self-employed. On the other hand those earning less than Lm4,200 have only contributed 2.6 per cent of total income tax contributions.
Yet in an indication that tax evasion measures has had an impact, the number of self-employed declaring incomes of more than Lm12,000 has increased substantially during the past seven years. In 2004, 5.8 per cent of all self-employed declared incomes of more than Lm12,000, compared to just 2.8 per cent in 1998.
The percentage of self-employed declaring less than Lm4,200 has decreased from an incredible 63.3 per cent in 1998 to 48.3 in 2004.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt |
