Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/994982
13 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 JUNE 2018 tionate procedural tenacity." Magrin also filed an appeal from Meli's judgement, saying the AG should have appealed the judgment of his acquittal instead of filing a new civil case. But his appeal was lost in November 2017 since the court argued that if there was a constitutional reference, the court was bound to wait until such reference becomes final. The saga came to an end when the AG's appeal on the constitutional reference was decided this week, with the Constitutional Court final- ly deciding that the second criminal proceedings institut- ed against Magrin on the same incident but with the time of the crime corrected, amount- ed to a breach of the 'ne bis in idem' rule. Kathleen Grima was defence counsel for Nicolai Magrin. magius@mediatoday.com..mt profile, breeder's identity and a veterinary's report," he said. "Unlicensed breeders do nothing of that, of course, and that is also why their birds cost less." Christopher Bartolo, an- other amateur breeder, con- firmed this. "I am doing everything by the book. Like many others, I joined a club and became a registered breeder, having my own registration number, which is used on the bird rings I use and which identifies me as the breeder," he said. "Un- fortunately, there are many others who continue to breed and sell birds without licence rings." Bartolo specialises in breed- ing songbirds, including greenfinches, goldfinches, chaffinches and gouldian finches, which by law should be sold with a closed ring, or not at all. The rings are placed round the birds' feet when they are only nine days old, so it would be impossible for the rings to be removed without actu- ally cutting off the bird's foot. They contain the breeder's name and registration num- ber. Bartolo said that he made sure to buy his birds from rep- utable pet shops in Malta and that every bird he sold carried a closed ring, identifying him as the breeder. "But birds are sold without the rings all the time and all over the country, in pet shops, at open air markets and even online," he said. "And then you get all the birds that are illegally imported from Sicily every few months, thousands of them. Those, of course, sell for much cheaper than birds bred under licence." pcocks@mediatoday.com.mt YANNICK PACE THE government has so far collected €8.75 million as envi- ronmental contributions from tourist stays in Malta, but de- spite the scheme being in its third year, the collection of the tax from a significant portion of operators is still proving dif- ficult. Since 2016, those offer- ing tourist accommodation have been obliged to collected €0.50c per person for each night, capped at €5. To make it easier for authori- ties to know how much they should be collecting, hoteliers and holiday apartment land- lords must issue their guests two invoices – one for expenses incurred during their stay, and a second for the eco-contribu- tion. The fee must be paid every three months and must be sub- mitted to the Inland Revenue Department along with VAT returns for the same period. Operators are also expected to maintain information on the number and age of guests stay- ing with them. Despite the legal obligation to pay the contribution, the gov- ernment is not collecting the money it is owed from all oper- ators, which can only increase as tourist numbers continue to rise. A spokesperson for the Fi- nance ministry told Malta- Today that the amount being collected was "by and large in line with budget" but said there were "still pending issues when it comes to its collection from the operators of private accom- modation hosting tourists". The ministry said that the Commissioner for Revenue was currently working with both the Tourism ministry and the Malta Tourism Authority with the aim of keeping "the relevant registers of such ac- commodation updated as well as to make the relevant register information available to the tax authorities in order to combat any evasion." According to the figures provided by the ministry, the amount collected in 2016 – the year of the scheme's introduc- tion – was €1.5 million. This increased to €2.6 million dur- ing the whole of 2017 and to €4.6 million in the first quarter of 2018. A quick look at tourist arriv- als in 2017 shows that Malta re- ceived 2.3 million visitors who spent a total of 16.5 million nights in Malta. Assuming that roughly seven in every eight visitors were over 18 – and therefore obliged to pay the contribution – the gov- ernment should have collected roughly €7.1 million. If one also assumes that 30% stayed in Malta for more than 10 days – and had their contri- bution capped at €5 – the total owed to the government goes down to some €6.7 million, which, if extrapolated over the entire period since the scheme has been in place, amounts to €11.7 million. Add to that nights spent in hotels and farmhouses, as well as any inaccuracies in our cal- culations and the government could so far have barely col- lected half of what it was meant to pocket. The Malta Hotel and Res- taurant Association (MHRA) president, Tony Zahra, told MaltaToday that, while the government was collecting contributions, the scheme needed to be enforced more ef- fectively. He stressed that the MHRA had got behind the govern- ment's plans to introduce the tax on the condition that the proceeds from it went to em- bellishment projects around the island. In order to make sure this hap- pened, he said that the MHRA had pushed the government to keep the funds ringfenced at the Inland Revenue Depart- ment, and not in the govern- ment's consolidated account. "We were good enough in negotiating and insisted that if there is going to be an eco-con- tribution, it must be just that, an eco-contribution," he said. "We didn't want a situation like we had with the road tax, which was originally intended to be used for roads, but isn't." He said that while it wasn't correct to say that the gov- ernment wasn't collecting eco-contributions, he said he couldn't say whether it was col- lecting all that it should. "I can assure you that as an association, we are going to be telling the government, 'you should have collected so much by now, and if you haven't, that's your problem because we are not tax collectors'." Zahra also said that there were some 110 registered ho- tels and roughly 1,200 holiday apartments registered with the authorities. The total unregis- tered holiday apartments, that were likely not paying the con- tribution, amounted to 3,000, he added. Zahra said that while the MHRA was not troubled by competition from Airbnb and other online booking sites for holiday apartments, the gov- ernment needed to ensure a level playing field. "If you're going to be in busi- ness, you must make sure you are compliant. We need bet- ter enforcement to determine who is registered," he insisted, adding that those who weren't registered and paying their eco- contribution were probably also not paying VAT. "It's not rocket science, most of these apartments are listed online so it's just a matter of taking the list of registered apartments and cross-checking with online listing." One way the government is working to address this is by reaching an agreement with Airbnb and other platforms that would allow the contribu- tion to be collected directly by the service provider and trans- ferred to the government. Last month, Airbnb's public policy manager, Alessandro Tommasi, said the platform was willing to collect the tax from its hosts and had similar agreement with other countries around the world. The ministry spokesperson confirmed that talks were on- going between "the relevant authorities" and "key stake- holders" in order to ensure "comprehensiveness in the col- lection of the relevant taxes on tourism accommodation" but did not specify further. ypace@mediatoday.com.mt €8.75 million in tourist eco-tax collected since 2016 Year Amount collected 2016 (June – December) €1.5 million 2017 €2.6 million 2018 (January – March) €4.6 million