Pastizzeria employee handed €3,000 fine for failing to issue VAT receipts
The employee told the court that his cash register’s printer roll had run out and couldn't find another roll until the inspectors came to the shop
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A surprise VAT inspection ended up costing an employee at a Tarxien pastizzeria thousands, after he was found guilty of breaching the VAT Act.
Glenn Gerald Urry, 25, from Tarxien was slapped with a €3,000 fine for failing to issue VAT receipts in a judgement handed down on Wednesday by Magistrate Yana Micallef Stafrace.
Two witnesses - both revenue inspectors for the taxman, had testified that during a surprise inspection at FourT’s Pastizzeria in Rahal Gdid on 24 November 2022, they had observed a customer paying €1.70 for a pizza. The inspectors had stopped the customer outside the shop and asked to see the VAT receipt, but the man was unable to comply as he had not been issued one.
The man returned to the shop, accompanied by the inspectors and asked Urry, who had been behind the counter, to issue one. The inspectors noted that the last receipt issued from the till was stuck to the cash register. It had been issued an hour before.
They had exhibited the readings taken from the register: Besides the €1.70 receipt for the pizza which the VAT inspectors had ordered the cashier to issue, they found two other receipts stuck to the cash register, which they seized as evidence to show that no further receipts for that amount had been issued during the time between when they had been printed and that of the receipt handed to the inspector.
Under cross-examination, the inspectors said that they don’t record the name of the purchaser. ”We were on site, we could see the transaction.”
When asked whether the customer had been given any change, one inspector was unable to recall, but explained that what had been important for them to note was the fact that the transaction had been completed.
When the inspectors had pointed out to Urry that he had not issued the receipt, “he had not even complained,” and had printed one out straightaway. The total takings for that day were €1.30, the court was told.
The defendant, Glenn Gerald Urry, had testified in his defence in October 2023, telling the court that “what had happened at the time was that his cash register’s printer roll had run and I couldn’t find [the refill].”
“The reading was €630, now here we are talking about a pastizzi shop, not a jeweller’s. €630 is quite an amount,” explained the defendant.
Faced with demanding customers, he had been unable to find the spare roll of paper, he said. “That was the whole problem. I could not find this roll of VAT receipt paper and then I found it eventually when they [the inspectors] came.”
The court noted that Urry had been identified by witnesses and had admitted to having committed the offence, when he told the court that he had been unable to find the paper roll and that he had not issued a receipt manually.
Declaring him to be guilty of offences against the VAT Act, the court handed Urry a fine of €3,000.