Finance Minister lashes out at renters for trying 'to avoid paying tax’

Addressing a press conference this afternoon at the Finance Ministry to launch the energy benefit, Fenech said: “Some people are finding it difficult to register their rented premises with the Water Services Corporation for social reasons.”

“Some renters are not letting tenants to transfer their rented premises in order to avoid paying tax,” Fenech told journalists during the press conference.

To circumvent this, Fenech announced that the WSC was accepting changes in tenants by only presenting documented evidence that they were indeed residing in that residence, without needing the consent of the tenants.

However, he was less categorical when asked whether he was going to take action against these tenants with this new information for tax evasion, hiding behind the fig of data protection, among other things.

“We cannot use that information for that purpose because there are issues of data protection,” the Finance Minister claimed.

“Moreover, if we use that information to combat tax evasion, then we would be harming mostly those people who we want to help, as they would stop renting out premises to these people,” he added.

Fenech explained that after the deadline for changes to addresses expired on 31 May 2010, the Finance Ministry was now sending out with post the energy benefit and households should be receiving them as from next Monday.

Under this scheme, which had already been announced in the last Budget speech in November, households would be receiving the energy benefit according to the number of persons in each household.

For instance, a one-person household would receive an energy benefit of €55; a two-person household would receive €80, a three-person household would receive €105, a four-person household would receive €130, a five-person household would not receive €155, while a six-person household would receive €150.

However, Fenech announced that those households which will exceed 10,000 units a year would not receive the energy benefit.

“Whoever consumes more than 10,000 units a yearly surely can afford to pay for electricity and should therefore not be subsidised by the State,” he insisted.

Asked whether the Government had actually calculated the average consumption for households, Fenech claimed that the average yearly consumption stood at around 6 to 7,000 units of electricity.

Moreover, he also announced that those very low-income families which are already receiving the energy vouchers would not receive the energy benefit cheques together.

Fenech also announced that in view of the hefty increase in the price of gas, the energy voucher or low-income families would be increase by €15 for families and by €25 for pensioners.

The minister said that because of the rise in the cost of gas, the energy benefit would also be increased to €15 in the case of families and €25 for pensioners.

The Finance Ministry told journalists that the energy voucher would also be issued to those households that had overdue bills, including those who had had their electricity supply cut due to unpaid bills.

“However, of course, we will pursue those overdue bills,” he warned.

Fenech explained how after the Government had issued the vouchers for energy-saving bulbs last year, there were various people that had not received them since they had not been on the WSC list.