Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/678126
WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT WEDNESDAY EDITION €1.00 Newspaper post WEDNESDAY • 11 MAY 2016 • ISSUE 468 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY Platini ban upheld • PAGE 20 JAMES DEBONO A new legal notice will give the Planning Authority the power to regularise illegally constructed buildings within development zones, including those in urban conservation areas, against a "fee". Fees for regularising penthous- es are higher than for any other buildings, presumably because of the greater impact such devel- opments have on the streetscape where these are located. The regularisation applies to the majority of buildings within the development zones, Plan- ning Authority CEO Johann Buttigieg told MaltaToday when asked how many buildings need to regularise their position. He said that most buildings have some form of illegality, with most irregularities being of a minor nature. While the fee imposed on reg- ularising an illegal apartment with a roofed area of 150m2 amounts to €1,500, regularising an illegal penthouse of the same size would cost €6,500. Regularising a fully detached villa with a roofed area of 250m2 would cost €5,600. Regularising a 100m2 boathouse – used by a registered fisherman – will cost €700. The regularisation is limited to illegalities carried out within the development zone before 2016, including those carried out in urban conservation areas where stricter planning regulations ap- ply on building heights. It also includes developments which have already been par- tially regularised by a planning amnesty issued in 2012 which exempted minor developments from pending planning enforce- ment. PAGE 7 Planning Authority sets the "price" for regularisation Panama goes beyond national politics Editorial Last Monday's Panama Pa- pers leak illustrated what this newspaper has been arguing since the earliest revelations concerning Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri: it is pointless to cry foul, if there is no genuine intention to re- form a rotten system. At first glance, Monday's revelations only confirm the extent of Malta's unsavoury habit of playing on the very fringes of the black economy. We now know that prominent Maltese business people, in- dustrial groups and lawyers/ accountants are involved in offshore interests: whether they own those interests or not. Naturally, the involve- ment of other people does not make Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri any more or less guilty of their own ac- tions. New names do not ab- solve a Cabinet minister and the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff who registered their off- shore companies and trusts in tax havens while in office. PAGE 9 • Parties squabble over Panama Papers leak • Malta's role in facilitating offshore tax avoidance • The intermediaries: the people who make offshore possible Tax authorities to open money laundering probe JURGEN BALZAN A specific tax unit could be set up to in- vestigate whether individuals and compa- nies named in the latest Panama Papers leak are involved in money laundering and tax evasion. Finance minister Edward Scicluna told MaltaToday that tax authorities would open a probe to see if the latest Panama Paper leak links any Maltese taxpayers to aggravated tax fraud. "Now that it has been published I will consult with the said institutions to see the best route forward to investigate both possible tax evasion or worse, money laundering. Admittedly they have to work on just what has been published so far." He added that "if the problem turns out to be massive a specific unit will be set up." Scicluna, currently in London to attend interviews of presidential candidates for The European Bank for Reconstruc- tion and Development, said that before the publication of the latest data he had instructed both the tax authorities and the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) to request the said data directly from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists who on Mon- day revealed that 714 companies linked to Malta are listed on the Panama Papers database. The leaked data show companies set up by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which specialises in offshore companies in tax havens. PAGE 3 PAGES 4-5 PAGE 6 PANAMA PAPERS