Jason Micallef files ethics complaint about Jason Azzopardi's tax returns

Jason Micallef has written to the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, calling on him to investigate Opposition MP Jason Azzopardi over “non-payment of tax due for several years.”

“I did this as a private citizen, in the national interest,” said Micallef, who besides being the Chairman of the Valletta Cultural Agency, is also that Chairman of the Labour party’s television station, One TV.

The Commissioner is empowered at law to declare an ethics breach, but not impose sanctions – these are decided by a House committee of MPs.

Earlier this week Labour took Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi to task for not having filed a tax return for his 2018 income.

Labour MP Glenn Bedingfield described Azzopardi, a key Nationalist critic of the Labour government, as a “false and hypocritical MP” who has broken the law through his “condemnable” omission to file his tax returns.

“Not one day passes with Azzopardi not attacking somebody: for him, everyone is corrupt or a thief, except himself. Today we know, he is a false MP… he has never taken responsibility for his lack of political accountability on the Lowenbrau, Fekruna, HSBC sites and encroachment permits as parliamentary secretary for lands,” Bedingfield said.

But speaking to MaltaToday on Thursday evening, Azzopardi said it had been impossible for him to file his returns on time due to his marital separation and legal problems that come with the process.

Azzopardi went on to say that in January 2021 he had personally presented his returns of 2018 and 2019, but that the Tax Commissioner was still processing the separate assessments as required in marital separation proceedings. “Tax Commissioner Marvin Gaerty informed the Clerk of the House as well as [Labour’s] One News, which they obviously omitted… it is truly vile that One News manipulate a personal problem I have, and which thousands of Maltese pass through, to tarnish me. It was certainly a way of deviating public attention from the fiasco that was Robert Abela’s COVID-19 press conference.”