Charles Farrugia has to pay €40,000 in taxes on undeclared income from Mdina property deal

Rosianne Cutajar’s political aide Charles Farrugia, known as it-Tikka, has paid almost €40,000 in taxes on undeclared income from a brokerage fee over a controversial Mdina property deal.

Farrugia sent his amended income tax return for the year 2019 to the Speaker on Tuesday afternoon just before the Standards Committee in parliament was to continue its meeting.

The committee heard Standards Commissioner George Hyzler on Tuesday morning and suspended the meeting after a vote on whether to adopt the report ended in a tie.

Hyzler found that Cutajar breached ethics when she failed to declare brokerage fees from the Mdina property deal in her parliamentary declaration.

Over the weekend, her political aide decided to take the fall, insisting that he would declare the full income from the deal. Cutajar has insisted she did not receive any money from the deal, a position Hyzler did not believe.

In a fresh twist to the whole affair, on Tuesday afternoon the Speaker decided that the committee should continue its investigation but abandoned the meeting when MPs could not agree on who should be summoned to testify.

Charles Farrugia’s income tax return shows that he did not declare €120,000 received from the property deal in 2019. The brokerage fee had been paid in cash.

The tax return sent to the Speaker dated 12 July shows that Farrugia has to pay the additional tax due of €39,619. It remains unclear whether the outstanding tax has already been paid although in the email to the Speaker, Farrugia said the tax return had “reached” the Inland Revenue Department.

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