
GRTU has officially
requested the honourable Chris Said, Minister for Justice, Dialogue and the
Family, to give answers to the following questions: The amount of
prison inmates that are serving timedue to VAT related offences of any
nature as at end July 2012;
The amount of
time that VAT offenders have spentserving time since the enactment of the
VAT Act; A breakdown of
whether those serving time emanate from the business community or the public in
general; The amount of
time that current inmates serving time due to VAT offences have to serve beyond
end July 2012; The amount of
inmates that are spending time related to non payment of penalty (13.98 daily)
GRTU has been however duly informed that the local prisons
are not within the remit of the Justice Ministry and accordingly these will now
be forwarded to the Prime Minister under whose portfolio this issue actually
falls.
This issue has been a bone of serious
contention between GRTU and the PN in Government since the introduction of VAT.
The two John Dalli VAT Acts have been unnecessarily cruel on entrepreneurs
given that VAT registered entrepreneurs have been forced at law to become tax
collectors and forced keepers of taxation moneys without any compensation
whatsoever and with all the extremely rigorous and time consuming and
excessively bureaucratic procedures involved. Most of the offences and
excessive penalties reflect the draconian articles in the Dalli VAT laws. These
should have been positively reformed years ago. Indeed, GRTU has been promised
this years ago.