Labour MEP Prof Edward Scicluna on Thursday, called on the government to improve the public debate on tax leading to reforms to Malta’s tax system.

Prof Scicluna told delegates at the ‘VAT and the EU’ conference organised by the Malta Institute of Management that Malta’s debate on its tax system needed to “make a quantum leap forward from the very basic level it is in.”

Drawing attention to the removal of subsidies on the public utilities, Prof Scicluna argued that taxpayers should have been refunded so that people could afford to pay the unsubsidized market price. He added that this amounted to an “unacceptable stealth tax.”

He added that Malta needed to find a new way toward a progressive and proportionate tax system saying that, “Many new taxes and tax cuts have shifted an unacceptable extra burden on low income households. Taxation has so many economic effects which one can ignore at one’s peril. Like a double edged sword it has to be handled with great care, and not used like a butcher’s knife.”

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