No, she didn't pay her stamp
Published:
September 29, 2010 at 9:22pm
Hallast il-bolla?
Here are Maltastar’s words of wisdom on the finance minister and his cleaner (about which, more from me tomorrow):
We hope big hearted Tonio is helping this cleaner financially? Did he pay her more so she could pay her stamp? Did he understand that by paying her the minimum she couldn’t have afforded to pay the National Insurance Contribution.
47 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
What is going on with this party though? This week we had a home affairs minister defending the transport of fireworks through residential areas, the PN secretary defaulting on VAT, a bankbencher bullying his local council, and now the finance minister admitting to irregular employment. Gonzi has lost control of his party. The four of them must go.
Sshhh, don’t wake them up
The finance minister was not employing his maid – so it is not a case of irregular employment – if anything he was paying a service wihtout asking for a VAT receipt, like all the persons making use of personal and occasional maid service do – but coming from the Minister it was stupid for him to to so and even stupider that he opened his mouth.
Having said that, I would rather have this lot, with all their minor faults, then a bunch of loonys who have no idea what governing means and just want to be in power at all costs.
When I look at what I achieved in the past 20 years and compare it with the previous 30 years of my life, then I have no doubt who I would like to be governing this country for the next 10 years.
Agreed Chris II, but we cannot have a two-tier system where a PS as a lawyer made a genuine mistake and resigned, the Santa Venera mayor resigned over the lack of procedure on small amounts of fees for private lessons, the Gozitan mayor resigned because his daughter used his PC to chat on Facebook and now we have this naive accountant/minister coming forward to tell us that his household paid the home helper and was not given a VAT receipt and expects us to let him get away with this as if nothing happened!
Lino Cert – Reading your post through Maslow’s theory one can begin to understand why the PN has been in government for so long and is in line to write a treatise titled “How to win an election against all imaginable odds”.
In a nutshell when in opposition the PN had a field day proposing itself as an alternative by appealing to issues that are fundamental to human individual needs, whilst the PL can only work on areas beyond the individual’s immediate needs.
In 1996 the MLP could only promise the ill fated and irresponsible removal of VAT and now it is attacking the government on alleged institutional corruption, which is not easily perceived by the individual. On the other hand the PN in 1987 appealed on individual Physiological needs (and yes! Water was also an issue apart from corruption at the level of individual) and in 1998 on individual self esteem and self actualisation.
If Maslow where still with us, I believe he would be happy to investigate this, to support his highly criticised work.
lino cert as if the Labour Party hasn’t got it’s fair share of the summer nuts. An Attard councillor destroying a church parvis to accommodate Labour supporters and also making private photocopies at the local council’s expense and he still sits on the same council and doesn’t want the media to be present in a public place.
Luqa council is being investigated and its secretary is to be taken to court on embezzlement charges.
And yes, we have a truly incompetent fool playing the Minister of Finance, when he should take care of his foolish mouth. You are not playing with angels but with tough demons. He should really resign not for employing a cleaner but for his foolish gaffes. His position is now untenable.
Hold on a second. What are they saying? First and foremost that is why there exists a labour market.
There is excess supply of cleaners which means that the elasticity of supply is quite elastic and hence the wage paid should be low.
[Daphne – In theory, yes. But in reality, there is an extreme shortage of cleaners in Malta and so, not only are wages relatively high for labour, but people bend over backwards to accommodate cleaners, picking them up from home or from the nearest bus-stop, taking them back, laying on food and drinks, and so on. If they come to work in their own car, it’s normal to give them extra cash for petrol. I don’t mean cleaners who work for commercial service agencies, but cleaning-ladies who come to your home.]
The market forces of supply and demand determine the wage. Since there is excess supply the equilibrium wage is low because today I fire X and tomorrow I hire Y. There are no skills involved and it does not take years to train a person to become a cleaner. The cleaner is lucky that there is a price floor on wages i.e. a minimum wage. The minimum wage paid is above the equilibrium determined by market forces.
On the other hand, a surgeon is paid a high salary for the simple reason that the supply of surgeons is inelastic. It takes years of sacrifices and studies and specialisation to become a surgeon. This means that the salary paid is above the equilibrium of the minimum wage and rightly so. What are these reporters expecting that every person earns a living wage? Hello! Wake up. If they cannot understand how the market forces work, then they have a problem to run the country. If they learn how market forces work, then their reporting on the cleaner would have been different.
Luigi, the “news value” of the story was that the finance minister’s cleaner – of all people – doesn’t pay her NI (= the ‘stamp’) and VAT. What she’s worth is beside the point.
It’s a “propaganda trick” played on impressionable minds to get them going about the finance minister flouting “his own rules”.
Oh, and that times are so dire that not even the finance minister can afford to pay his cleaner well (= living wage)
Propaganda trick no. 2: the finance minister has the country’s coffers at his disposal; if he can’t afford something then let alone the downtrodden worker …
Daphne, the extra you are paying for home-help is to buy their trust. They’re coming into your house after all.
[Daphne – No, Joseph. You either trust a person or you don’t. It has nothing to do with money. I pay extra because of the forces of demand and supply. There is an extreme shortage of pleasant and trustworthy cleaning-ladies who are prepared to work in a home with large and savage dogs because they actually like them, and who can drive themselves to your house – so one must pay over the odds for the service. That’s the way it works.]
Big businesses do not care that much as they are insured and the bean counters would be wasting time offsetting risks and costs to justify their pay, even if it destroys the livelihood of the cleaners and their children’s future. Profits before ethics is what you want.
“The market forces of supply and demand determine the wage”
Do you hear yourself speaking? It’s a thinly veiled attempt at justifying abuse of fellow citizens.
[Daphne – Who is abused here, Joseph? Not Maltese cleaning-ladies, that’s for sure. They get exactly what they want: twice as much as the minimum wage in undeclared income, working in a home environment with food and drink on tap and their transport paid for or otherwise provided.]
Your argument condones slavery. If your business cannot afford to pay a decent wage then it should be shuttered. Why should a worker, no matter how menial his/her work be, bear the burden of your unsustainable business?
[Daphne – They can always leave and find work elsewhere. And if they can’t, why, that’s the market. If it didn’t function that way, there would be no jobs to begin with, and we would all be engaged in some Korp tal-Pijunieri.]
That reasoning destroyed the industrial base in the US and England. Germany and France still have theirs and manage to protect a decent life to the proletariat. Now the US is struggling to fix the problem.
I’m waiting for the communist retort…
Daphne, do I get it right that the literal translation “bolla” -> “stamp” annoys you more than reports of corruption, unpaid VAT, unpaid NI etc?
[Daphne – What corruption? What unpaid VAT? What unpaid NI? Maids are self-employed (unless they are employed), so Tonio Fenech’s maid was responsible for paying her own national insurance and he had nothing to do with it. People who engage the services of, for instance, doctors and lawyers are not responsible for making sure they pay their ‘stamp’. And perhaps you can’t read either, as well as knowing nothing about these things apart from what you read in scandal-sheets. Did you miss the bit where I wrote ‘but more about this from me tomorrow’? I do have a regular Thursday obligation with a newspaper, you know.]
But you can afford to pay the national insurance you fucken bitch and ashole like you i hope that the commisioner of police will take the minister to court for employing a person whitout the nessesary documents and by the way our salvature is out of hospital THANK GOD and you still have to wait for his funeral asshole well in maltese we say mietu il hrief qabel in naghag liba kollok are ikolloks funeral int qabel xadina
Aristokratiku jew Mittilkless?
Don’t let these demented a**holes post any more Daphne! Remember the rules ? :)
Ahjar mort torqod tony10, kont taghmel aktar figura.
Tony, go to school. There are a thousand ways you can poke daphne, she takes the bait sometimes as well. There’s no need to be aggressive. A hint: do not promote violence.
Qed tħammeġ dak li temmen fih u qed turi nuqqas kbir ta’ ħsieb, sieħbi.
Well, he could have been more cautious about revealing the identity of the person. Imagine what this poor woman must be feeling right now. She must surely have let slip at some point ‘li nahdem ma’ Tonio Fenech’.
As for supply and demand, I don’t think there are many people willing to do the job of housemaids nowadays. I for one have always struggled with finding a decent person, and not one of them accepts a rate of less than 6 eur an hour … I agree with Daphne’s point completely.
@ Chris II, I agree 100%
If Babelfish did Maltese I would think that Maltarats is written in (broken) Maltese and translated to pidgin English by Babelfish.
That said, Babelfish doesn’t put question marks in all the wrong places?
I can understand that the minister’s wife engaged the maid, but please for heaven’s sake don’t go and say such things in public in front of the top brass of Malta’s social partners!
To add insult to injury, Fenech tried to derail a journalist from his question: “Is it OKk for a minister of finance not to ask for a receipt for services rendered?”
Fenech’s pathetic answer and the getaway from this (tall) menace were unconvincing.
Igifeiri ahjar tahbi? fl-ahhar ghandna persuna, onesta li ma tiddejjaqx tghid dak li hu hazin.
Le, ahjar ma tperricc l-izbal li jkun gara f’darek.
Il-Ministru mhux zgur ikun jaf min hi il-home help li tkun qabbdet martu, imma ahjar kellma inqas, iktar u iktar quddiem l-imsiehba socjali u l-gurnalisti.
Da qisu qassis qed jippriedka minn fuq il-pulptu biex ma nhallux radjijiet fil-karozzi ghax darba waqt li kien ma’ wahda Paceville ra wiehed jisraq ir-radjijiet mill-karozzi.
Kullhadd bir-ragun kieku jaqbez fuqu biex jara kif inhi din li kien ma wahda Paceville.
This guy Luigi does not have the faintest idea of what the situation with home helps is. He must be living in Montecarlo or in cloud cuckoo land.
What is all this elasticity and equilibrium?
When did he last try to hire a home help in Malta ? It must have been during the KMB dark ages when unemployment was rampant. That was almost thirty years ago. Malta has gone a long, long way since then. Excess supply my foot.
The going wage is 50% above the minimum wage, tax and bolla free, like the minister’s lady. How’s that for a living wage?
In Malta, surgeons undercut each other. Maids do not.
With over employment there are too few of them to go around.
This is the local situation, whether the PL doom-mongers like it or not.
Persons are permitted to work for a few hours – about 6 or 9 hours – in any one week without paying NI contribution and without charging/paying VAT. There is thus no irregularity on the part of the employer so long as the permissible number of working hours per week is not exceeded.
On the other hand, cleaners tend to work with different employers on different days, perhaps also taking a few hours off that work to sign up the unemployed register and so claim unemployment and welfare benefits.
The employer has no means of checking on that. The contravention lies exclusively with the cleaner.
Instead of picking up and conveying the correct message to the public, that is, the short-sightedness and irresponsibility of persons who work and dodge the NI obligations that ultimately are to their own benefit, the media instead latched on to the secondary and in this context far less important “Maa. Smajtu x’ghamel il-ministru…” line.
Cheap sensational headlines sell more papers than serious stuff – a sad reflection on the mindset of the readers.
“Persons are permitted to work for a few hours – about 6 or 9 hours – in any one week without paying NI contribution and without charging/paying VAT”
Are you sure about this? Where did you get this information from?
[Daphne – The information is freely available to everyone, Lino. Some people actually get the facts before forming an opinion. You should try it.]
Are you saying that I can employ as many people as I wish, for nine hours a week each, and not demand VAT receipts, not pay NI and avoid all the usual inconvenient bits and bobs that are usually associated with employing someone?
[Daphne – Again, you clearly don’t understand how any of this works (or doesn’t). The ‘nine hours a week’ or thereabouts is for self-employed people doing a bit of work here and there: for example, a woman who cleans houses just one day a week. It does not apply to employees, because the employment NI regime is different. Half your NI, when you are employed, is paid by your employer. When you are self-employed, you have to pay the full amount yourself (obviously) and there is a minimum rate however much you earn. This minimum amount per year is around EUR1200 a year, so when you’re not doing much work it’s not worth working at all, because you might find yourself earning EUR2500 and paying EUR1200 in NI. Well, that’s how some people see it. Others think it is worth having national insurance and a pension, however small. VAT receipts: anyone who provides a service has to register for VAT, even if they fall below the threshold for collecting VAT. The threshold exempts you from levying/collecting VAT. It does not exempt you from registering with the VAT Department, filling in VAT returns or issuing VAT receipts (but without VAT). Employers are certainly not exempt from the VAT regime because they might happen to employ people for nine hours a week. I can’t imagine how you reached that confused conclusion.]
Whoever wrote this latest masterpiece for Maltastar has managed to pen yet another classic. What with misplaced question marks, mangled syntax, the odd malapropism and a general state of misinformation, the piece easily satisfies the very lowest of standards we have come to expect from the website.
No wonder the article appears under the heading ‘Leader’.
The issues raised by those few lines up there are multifold.
1. Linguistic analysis
What is the use of all those question marks. The opening sentence, at least, is a statement. Why end a statement with a question mark?
Are they asking whether they hope he’s doing what they’re saying? Why the heck are they asking US? THEY should know what they’re hoping!
Then, “Did he pay her more so she could pay her stamp?” I will not enter into the stamp=bolla disquisition. The utter linguistic incompetence of whoever wrote this piece is glaring.
But what I would like to focus on is the question. Whoever “penned” this piece does not realize that they are using calque from Maltese: Hallasha aktar biex tkun tista’ thallasha l-bolla? This is what they had in mind.
Instead, in English, they wrote the equivalent of Hallasha aktar biex tkun tista’ thallas il-bolla?
Note the subtle difference.
2. Conceptual analysis
What is the argument here? The service-user had to agree to a higher price so that the service-provider might pay her NI contribution?
I.e., the NI contribution was not paid because the service-user did not agree to a higher price for the service?
This would be a novel defence for failure to pay NI contributions by the self-employed. “I am sorry, I have not paid my NI contribution because my clients failed to agree to a higher price.”
Thwarted logic, isn’t it?
To avoid misunderstandings.
Hallasha aktar biex tkun tista’ thallas il-bolla = He paid her more. Why? So that she could pay the NI contribution.
Hallasha aktar biex tkun tista’ thallasha l-bolla = He could have paid her more to enable her to pay the NI contribution but he didn’t. Why?
Did he pay her more so that she could pay her stamp? is calque for the first thought.
What they probably wanted to say was:
He could have paid her more, enabling her to pay the stamp [sic] – did he do that?
or something to that effect.
Perhaps you, Daphne, could find a more efficient and economic way of conveying the thought.
Well said Chris II
Maltastar’s inexplicable use of question marks illustrates the frame of mind with which the articles are written.
On a more important note, facts suggest there is no shortage of cleaners. I know a number of working class housewives who have started working as cleaners (after some 20 years out of the labour force) two or three times a week in residences in the Sliema area. They catch the 7a.m. bus to Valletta so that they can be home by 2p.m.
In addition, cleaners employed by cleaning contractors (which, in this case, include subliterate youths) are known for being paid low wages and having sub-standard conditions of work.
A shortage ofr cleaners might exist only to those residing in the outskirts of Rabat, then.
I don’t think housewives are eager to pay their NI contributions, either. Though, I am aware of some service administered by the government where cleaners are paid to work in elders’ residences, thus making the payment of contributions inevitable.
Kitba bhal ta’ dan l-istupidu Toni10 ma jmissekx tippubblika, Daphne, b’rispett lejn min jaqra dan il-blog.
If I am a low wage earner, I don’t pay tax and get maximum benefits. If my wife/partner goes to do house chores and get paid without giving fiscal receipts than we would be cheating the taxman because he would not have the means to find out what extra income my wife added to the household.
Who cares if she did not insure herself? That’s her business. We find it hard that a finance minister hires someone who is a tax dodger.
As a tradesman I don’t do small jobs because I don’t want to get in the VAT bureaucracy system which ended some people in jail for as little as Lm500.
If the minister condones such behaviour I would gladly do some small job and earn some extra undeclared cash.
I pay NI already.
Has anyone heard of somebody asking for a Vat receipt from a cleaner? And apparently we should also ask for proof that she/he is paying NI contributions.
When I pay a plumber I know I should ask for a VAT receipt (which means i have to pay extra to cover the VAT). Should I also ask him to provide proof that he is paying the NI?
[Daphne – No, of course not. It’s not your business and it’s up to him to pay his NI. I think Charlon Gouder doesn’t fully understand that cleaning-ladies, unless they work for a cleaning service, are self-employed. That might be because he thinks of self-employed people as The Rich.]
Even on this board, a lot of people are calling those who obtain the services of a maid as “employers”. It is incorrect to use that word. They are clients, not employers.
tony10 – did you vote for the new logo your party will be adopting? –
Most of the cleaning ladies cannot afford to pay the NI contributions, unless it has been decided to start doing this job to start paying contributions and get a pension in their future.
Plenty of housewives decided to start working as maids in private residences to make ends meet and to have more money available to invest in their children’s education and other matters.
Generally speaking, there were times when they used to charge Lm5 for the whole morning and then they started charging LM2 an hour to get Lm10. Now it seems that they are also charging for the bus fare.
[Daphne – Yes, it is now normal to pay for your cleaning-lady’s transport. If she comes to you by car, you give her a petrol allowance, and if she comes by bus, you pay her bus fare and also pick her up from the nearest bus-stop if it is a bit too far to walk. If your cleaning-lady doesn’t have a car or a lift to work and you don’t live on a bus route, you pick her up from her home or from a central bus-stop. That’s the way it works. It’s a seller’s market because buyers are desperate. And the more women enter the workforce at higher levels, the more demand for cleaning-ladies will increase, the higher their unofficial wages will go and the greater their demands become, until pressure increases for the government to release regular permits for maids from south-east Asia.]
The minimum NI contribution for a self-employed was Lm9.
I’m sure that everybody would agree to pay contributions for a safe future, but what about the present? If the housewife needs the money to keep her going, she wouldn’t think of investing in a pension.
And if they have to increase their rates in order to pay tax, VAT and NI there would be much less demand for their services.
Aren’t ministers supposed to lead by example? Why didn’t he ask her for a VAT receipt? If he knew this woman wasn’t declaring her income why did he carry on using her services or he stopped using her services the moment she did not hand him a receipt?
[Daphne – Read my article today and get with the programme.]
I don’t generally request VAT receipts either so that makes me guilty too but, then again, I don’t give public moral lessons about how to be a good tax-paying citizen.
Wait a minute, is he not the same minister who took a free ride (literally) on George Fenech’s private jet? Wouldn’t this be his umpteenth bookable offence? He should thank his lucky stars that Gonzi the referee wasn’t watching? Does he ever?
[Daphne – Travelling on a private jet is not a bookable offence, but an unwise move.]
“I don’t give public moral lessons about how to be a good tax-paying citizen.”
So what’s all you said here, then?
I simply said the accuser is just as guilty as the accused.
[Daphne – How so?]
Just read it. A great article….if taken out of context.
Weren’t you shocked a couple of days ago at Zarb’s being in the VIP section (or wherever) during the Elton John concert? I am not saying you praised the minister or anything but, considering the importance of a minister’s position as opposed to a union leader’s, you didn’t show the same level of indignation.
[Daphne – Is it compulsory for Labour supporters to be illogical and miss the point? I did not question anyone’s right to buy concert tickets for EUR400. I questioned the wisdom of doing so when you head Malta’s largest labour union and have made a career of telling the nation that people can’t make ends meet and are starving in the gutter. Tony Zarb exposed himself to the accusation that he’s frittering money while his people are starving – or that he has a accepted a gift worth EUR400 from an undisclosed source.]
How about teachers who have converted their garage into a classroom to give private lessons in the afternoon/evening, even up to 10pm, and charge an arm and a leg per hour ?
Spot on correct. And might I also add the truckloads of lawyers, doctors and building contractors yearly tax declarations are a joke. The list is endless. Unfortunately, in this country of omerta’, it is the little fish like Tonio Fenech’s, now notorious, ex-cleaning lady, who get the limelight.
This story has legs too long. Tonio Fenech was giving an example about the value of declaring income and paying NI to be covered.
Lejborist, do you per chance want a state that gives you a lot of benefits without you as a citizen contributing something back?
I believe that education and medical and dental treatment are VAT free. However, medical and dental practitioners are still bound by law to give a receipt.
[Daphne – No doctor has ever given me one. On the contrary, at the clinic I sometimes frequent, I am given a receipt for the clinic’s services, like tests etc, but no receipt for the doctors’ fees which I pay over the same counter.]
[Daphne – How so?]
I simply meant that, by not requesting a VAT receipt, the minister is just as ‘guilty’ as the cleaning lady who he ‘accused’ of not declaring her income.
[Daphne – Not at all.]
@ Joseph A Borg
You’re missing my point completely. I’m clearly against tax evasion. But I’m also of the opinion that the cleaning lady example that Fenech pulled out isn’t really up to snuff. He knows very well that if he wants to address tax evasion in a serious manner he has to start pointing his gun elsewhere.