[WATCH] Paradise Papers | ‘Malta tax critics are OK with weapons sales’, says junior minister

Critics who label Malta’s taxation system ‘immoral’ would do better to explain how it is ethical for them to support the arms industry, a government junior minister said.

Parliamentary secretary Silvio Schembri told MaltaToday that, following the publication of the Paradise Papers, it was very easy for certain countries to once again label Malta as a country that facilitates tax avoidance, as they had already tried to do in the aftermath of the Panama Papers.

“The PANA committee has concluded Malta’s system is entirely legal and that no laws have been broken,” he said. “As to those EU member states who say there’s a moral element to this, how is it they think it’s fine for them to support companies in their own countries that sell weapons?”

Schembri said that Malta’s taxation system had survived scrutiny before and will do so again.

“These same countries keep trying to bring up this issue at every chance they have, but I have no doubt that – if offered – they would refuse a system like ours that would generate the same amount of business, jobs and opportunities as ours.”