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.

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.

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.]

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?

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.]

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.]