|
 |
|
Karl Schembri
Up to 130,000 taxpayers will be receiving their tax statements with the forms completed by the Income Tax Department in the coming weeks, Parliamentary Secretary for Finance Tonio Fenech announced yesterday.
Launching the reformed income tax return system, Fenech said thousands of taxpayers – mainly employees, students and pensioners – have been identified by the income tax department to be exempted from filling their income tax return and self-assessment forms.
Instead of filling their returns and self-assessment or simple declaration (green or blue forms respectively), the taxpayers will now be served directly with the tax statement based on information available at the department, which they will be asked to verify.
People falling under the new scheme will have information about their employment income filled in automatically, as well as those receiving local or British Services pensions, income from local interest which has not been subjected to the 15 per cent final withholding tax, income arising from transfers of immovable property that was subject to a final tax and income arising from dividends paid out by companies quoted on the Malta Stock Exchange.
The department will also use information regarding payments of school fees to independent private schools as well as tax at source on dividends paid out by listed companies.
“Eligible taxpayers will not be bothered to file their income tax forms any longer,” Fenech said. “In past years, many taxpayers resorted to assistance to fill in their income tax return by using the services offered by the department or by private individuals. This new initiative means they will put all this trouble aside. These taxpayers will be able to comply with their tax obligations in a less costly and less time consuming manner and without the risk of incurring penalties for late filing of their tax return.”
Taxpayers will only have to check that the income shown in the statement and the tax due are correct. If the statement does not reflect all the taxpayer’s income, the income tax return would have to be filled in and sent by 30 June.
Some taxpayers who may qualify for the new scheme may have still been left out because of incomplete information held by the department, but they should be entered into the scheme as of next year.
If the taxpayer has other income that the department is unaware of, he or she would be required to declare it in an income tax return, or else be liable to pay additional tax for late filing and up to 1 per cent interest per month on outstanding tax balance. Fenech said however that in the case of mistakes made by the department, there will be no penalties on the taxpayers.
The scheme will not cover taxpayers who are in receipt of trade or business income, rental income, had income from capital gains during the year on which provisional tax was paid, are in receipt of foreign pensions, had income from overseas employment, derive income from foreign investments or received or paid alimony.
The department will be sending an information leaflet to taxpayers informing them of the new measures. |
