GUEST POST/This is about where he got those mysterious assets, and not about whether he pays tax on them

By Joseph Gauci:

Malta Today has produced a relatively good piece about this scandal today. They’re obviously angry at the way Konrad Mizzi first volunteered to give them a ‘scoop’ (because he knew you had rumbled him) and then brazenly lied to them and didn’t give them the most important part of the story: that he set up a company in the blacklisted jurisdiction of Panama.

He was forced to admit to owning that company in Panama only after you broke the news yourself later on in the day and pointed out that he had lied to Malta Today by concealing this most important fact from them.

But Malta Today seems to have fallen for the argument being put about by the Labour Party and its many internet elves(typing away from the ministries at our expense) that this is some kind of tax avoidance scheme and so it is perfectly fine.

This is not an issue of tax avoidance or tax evasion. That was what used to happen in Malta when our tax rate was 65%: legitimately earned funds were salted away abroad to escape the tax, but the funds themselves were generally legitimate.

This case is one of a complex financial vehicle in a secrecy jurisdiction known for its grand corruption, attempting to give it double secrecy and a veneer of acceptability elsewhere TO HIDE ILL-GOTTEN GAINS WHICH CANNOT BE DECLARED TO THE AUTHORITIES IN MALTA BECAUSE THEIR MEANS OF ACQUISITION ARE CORRUPT AND ILLEGAL AND, BECAUSE KONRAD MIZZI IS A GOVERNMENT MINISTER, CARRY A PENALTY ON CONVICTION OF YEARS IN PRISON.

It’s the origin of the assets he plans to put there (or has put there already) that is the issue, and not whether he is paying tax or not.