Comments on: Konrad Mizzi’s wife and children used diplomatic passport numbers to set up secret trust

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Mon, 23 May 2016 15:49:00 +0000

Oh, I can all right. Almost half the electorate voted to replace Eddie Fenech Adami with that nutcase Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici in 1992. And this when both of them had been tried and tested as prime minister, in immediate succession, so that direct comparisons could be made. And they still preferred KMB.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Mon, 23 May 2016 15:45:00 +0000

In reply to Olaf Bartolo. Sexism. They don't see her as a PEP in her own right. They don't see her as a government envoy in her own right. They see her as Konrad Mizzi's wife. This is Malta.

By: Olaf Bartolo

Olaf Bartolo — Mon, 23 May 2016 15:35:00 +0000

Sai Mizzi must be a Very Special Person to both the Maltese government and the Chinese one. We can probably safely assume she holds both Maltese and Chinese passports even though China strictly prohibits this.

She is married to Maltese government minister who’s had a finger (or two) in every significant contract Malta has signed. She half-owns at least one no-longer-secret company in a super-secretive tax haven. She must be the only envoy in the world who can’t be reached by telephone. And her work is such that it can’t be divulged to parliament or the public.

Why aren’t our journalists asking more questions about this PEP?

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Mon, 23 May 2016 13:22:00 +0000

As if those sorts of people know the difference between Tigne Street and Tigne Sea Front. Trid tkun native ta’ Tas-Sliema.

By: Roughjustice

Roughjustice — Mon, 23 May 2016 13:03:00 +0000

The trust is revocable. This means that at any point the settlor, Mr. Konrad, can revoke it and take back all that is held in trust.

In most jurisdictions, for a court to accept that a person has alienated him/herself from his/her property then the trust must be IRREVOCABLE.
Property that you place in an irrevocable trust is no longer considered part of your estate, meaning that the property typically isn’t included in your estate’s value when it comes to determining if you owe death taxes and, if so, how much.

However in most jurisdictions, you still own property that you place into a revocable trust, and therefore that property is still subject to death taxes. If you can change your mind about the trust and retrieve the property from the trust at any time while you’re still alive, the property is really yours and should be considered part of your estate.

The devil is in the detail.