AD – Government needed citizenship sale to balance books after tax cuts

Greens say income tax cuts carried forward to 2014 have created serious shortfall

20 November 2013, 12:00am
by Matthew Vella

1 min read

AD chairperson Arnold Cassola

Alternattiva Demokratika has claimed Malta's at-risk status of not complying with the European Commission's excessive deficit procedure is down to income tax cuts for the middle class.

AD said tax cuts first announced in the 2013 budget for high-income earners had created a serious shortfall in the country's income.

The European Commission has warned that Malta is at risk of 'non-compliance' with respect to Stability and Growth Pact, which binds member states to keep deficits below the 3% of gross domestic product, and also the Excessive Deficit Procedure recommendation for 2014.

"This contrasts with other EU members who are quoted to be 'broadly compliant' with the Commission's recommendations," AD chairperson Arnold Cassola said. "The Commission notes that the projected dynamic increase in tax revenues in 2014 does not appear to be fully explained. It is concerned also about Enemalta's dependence on subsidies and possible lower net capital expenditure due to slippages in budgetary execution.

"This is all a result of the fact that both the PN and the PL ignored Alternattiva Demokratika's appeal not to decrease the income tax rate for higher earners, with the result now being the serious shortfall in the country's income."

Cassola also criticized the "rushed" Individual Investor Programme, which will sell citizenship at €650,000 per passport, which he said "reveals the government's desperate measures to balance the books in 2014, aware of the economic situation in Eurozone which is affecting seriously domestic and foreign consumption. AD urges the Government to address the risks mentioned in the report, in particular revenue projections and job-creation."

Matthew Vella, a freelance journalist at MaltaToday, was formerly executive editor at Malt...

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So what may I ask? Perhaps AD have a money making machine hidden somewhere. Filkas let us know. We need to get the money from somewhere.

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Let us go back to basics. Who came out with the budget to reduce tax from 35% to 33% and then to 29%. The corrupt Nationalists. And who will gain at this upper end of the tax cuts - the Nationalists. And what could this Government do, inheriting such tax cuts - try to balance the books. SO WHAT IS WRONG WITH TRYING TO BALANCE THE BOOKS SO THAT WE, THE PEOPLE OF MALTA, DO NOT INCUR EVEN MORE FINES FROM THE EU FOR ACTIONS ATTRIBUTED SOLELY TO THE CORRUPT GOVERNMENT THAT WAS TRASHED OUT IN MARCH.

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Finally a voice of reason. Why on earth give tax cuts to high income earners in a time of economic crisis, deficits and debt? This was a folly, initiated by the PN and continued by the PL in their populist - but headless - eagerness to get elected.