Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/723651
3 MIRIAM DALLI MALTA has continued to im- prove its VAT collection com- pliance with its VAT gap – the percentage of uncollected VAT – 'declining' to 35.3% through sustained strong revenue perfor- mance, figures released by the European Commission show. But despite the improved per- formance – ranking first in terms of highest rise in compli- ance (6.33%) – Malta registered the third largest gap, preceded by Romania (37.89%) and Lithu- ania (36.84%). This means that Malta's gap is equivalent to €351 million, as yet uncollected VAT. Figures for 2013 show Malta's VAT gap rate at 39% and 42% in 2012. The figures for 2014 emerge from figures released by the Eu- ropean Commission, in a report that was written by a team ex- perts for the Directorate Gener- al Taxation and Customs Union. Whilst no substantial changes were made to Malta's VAT rates structure during 2014, one of the first initiatives undertaken by Finance Minister Edward Scicluna in 2013 was to draft up measures making it easier for those who are in default of VAT payments to regularise their position. Figures provided to the European Commission show that Malta's VAT revenue for 2014 rose to €642 million, with the gap amounting to €351 million. The gap represents a de- cline of four percentage points. Malta was noted as being amongst the four members states that that significantly in- creased their revenue increased tax compliance along with sub- stantially increasing their tax base. Half of EU-27 Member States had a Gap below 10.40%. Over all, a staggering €159.5 billion in VAT revenues were lost across the EU in 2014. Re- search shows that the overall difference between the expected VAT revenue and the amount ac- tually collected amounted once again to an unacceptably high yearly figure. The report found that, com- pared to 2013, the 2014 VAT GAP decreased by €2.5 billion but individual performances of Member States still vary enor- mously when it comes to VAT compliance. Some 18 Member States showed an improvement in their figures, while eight Member States failed to collect more VAT revenues than the year before. The VAT Gap rate ranged from a high of 37.9% of uncol- lected VAT in Romania to a low of only 1.2% in Sweden. In abso- lute terms, the highest VAT Gap of €36.9 billion was recorded in Italy while Luxembourg had the lowest of €147 million. "Our Member States are losing tens of billions of euros in uncol- lected VAT revenue. This is un- acceptable. The current regime is woefully ill-equipped to deal with the problems of VAT fraud and miscalculations, and it's clear that the numbers will not get better by themselves," Pierre Moscovici, Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs said. "Member States must now quickly agree on a definitive fraud-proof EU VAT system, as laid out by the Commission ear- lier this year. I therefore urge all of our Member States to have a frank and meaningful discus- sion in order to feed into next year's proposals, so we can tack- le this issue once and for all." maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2016 News SOON ON TVM For advertising on XTRA contact Claire Ciantar on: cciantar@mediatoday.com.mt Fainting spell leads woman to crash into two parked cars A woman was hospitalised this morning after a fainting spell led her to crash into two parked cars. The accident took place at about 11:20am in Bir id-Deheb in Zejtun, when the woman fell ill while driving and crashed her Kia into a parked Toyota Yares and a Fiat. An ambulance conveyed her to hospital to receive medical at- tention, but her condition is still unknown. Police sources have confirmed that no one else was injured. Malta has third highest uncollected VAT in European Union Despite the improved performance – ranking first in terms of highest rise in compliance (6.33%) – Malta registered the third largest gap, preceded by Romania (37.89%) and Lithuania (36.84%) €351 million VAT payments remained uncollected in 2014