> Year after year, followers of respective patron saints attempt to outspend and outdo their neighbouring parish in a contentious crusade for showmanship
It looks like a set of very bad habits. A place where signalling power and wealth is more important than self-growth.
Malta is a tax haven and famous for the assassination of the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.*
All that does not hint a healthy society, but a society that needs to get away from tribalism and embrace better ways.
Small island nations (or smaller countries in general) don't have the muscle large nations do. You're not going to build a production facility for cars on Malta, for example.
There is nothing wrong with them having a beneficial tax system if it means people will relocate and spend money there while paying (some) tax.
What does a country like Malta, Cyprus or Monaco honestly have to lose by being a tax haven?
The Euro is living proof that a shared currency with individual monetary policy is a lot of trouble in the long run. Greece is still learning this lesson.
Truth be told, the majority of Greece's problems sprung from how past greek governments cooked the state's books to hide its perpetually massive deficit and ever increasing debt in order to keep borrowing more cash and keep the structural deficit high.
And yet, it seems like basic due diligence seems like a good approach when "acquiring" an extra member state when one bad member can bring the whole house down.
> What does a country like Malta, Cyprus or Monaco honestly have to lose by being a tax haven?
Simplisticly speaking, they only gain from being tax havens. Point is that everyone else looses. Taxing is a zero-sum situation where if you pay taxes in one place, you don't pay them somewhere else. So this is a nonsensical, because essentially the other countries' taxes are rendered optional. Why pay the whole thing, when you can do some corporate gymnastics and pay less to a tax haven?
It comes down to what in the socialist context is referred to as solidarity. In this case, if you want to tax something, everyone has to agree to that. If there are notable exceptions, it doesn't work. Malta is an example of a notable exception.
Agreed. Smaller nations/states almost have to do that to remain competitive.
Especially the newer EU member states that have been experiencing an incredible amount of brain-drain i.e. people moving to bigger/"richer" countries. Bigger countries profit from that while smaller die out - unless they make themselves more attractive somehow. To some extent its happening within bigger countries as well with urbanisation - in Germany for example villages that are not close to bigger urban centres have the same problem.
Whether you call it a "tax haven" or subsidising - in practice its virtually the same thing. Of course you need some rules in place to prevent creative tax practices by multinationals (like linking taxation to physical presence) - but its a do or die sort of thing.
"The shape itself of Mrs Muscat’s ‘New York for the UN’ dress is beyond horrible – really unflattering. Only a tall, skinny 20-year-old can carry off something that shape, but then a tall, skinny 20-year-old wouldn’t want to wear it."
I'm assuming he meant that that is not the writing you'd expect from a so called "anti corruption" journalist.
While she may have been involved in a couple of corruption related stories the vast majority of her reporting is more like what you’d expect from tmz or the daily mail.
TMZ has probably broken a corruption related story in the past, would you call them “anti-corruption” journalists?
In 2016, Maltans got around 200 (two hundred) euros per person more from the EU than they put in, and in the previous year they got 20 (twenty). For comparison, Greece steadily gets ~400 EUR/person, and they have a lot more people too.
Heh, it pales in comparison to London when it comes to financial and economic crime. [0] The article may not serve as evidence but it gives you hints. And we're not talking about a nation that has no other choice in order to stay competitive.
People and nations will always find ways to work around the rules to gain more. You have a union of dozens of nations and hundreds of millions of people and you are searching for fair? For all?
I have only visited the island once but I am happy they are part of the EU.
One of the largest tax evasion / money laundry heavens is Denmark (And I say that as a Dane). Malta’s wrong doings is dwarfed by the recent revelations off what Danske Bank did through its Estonian subsidiary.
More than 12% of Malta's GDP is from online gaming [0]. Countless online casinos advertise in other European countries, but are located in Malta due to more relaxed rules and lower taxes.
Companies in Malta are subject to Maltese supervision, and thanks to the EU the companies can operate in the rest of the EU as well. There's probably some extra rules they need to follow in each country, I don't know the details.
The Maltese economy is full of money laundering, tax evasion [1, 2], mafia [3], and other gray areas [4, 5] anyway. This article is a puff piece in the travel section, so it's hardly the place for mentioning of the Panama papers or journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia that was investigating online gambling and corruption was killed by a car bomb in 2017 [6].
Same salaries as France, insignificant taxes, no social protection, Californian weather... Young and healthy developer are happy there - older people with families better stay away. Lovely tourism destination though !
37 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 87.0 ms ] threadIt looks like a set of very bad habits. A place where signalling power and wealth is more important than self-growth.
Malta is a tax haven and famous for the assassination of the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.*
All that does not hint a healthy society, but a society that needs to get away from tribalism and embrace better ways.
* https://www.theguardian.com/world/daphne-caruana-galizia
There is nothing wrong with them having a beneficial tax system if it means people will relocate and spend money there while paying (some) tax.
What does a country like Malta, Cyprus or Monaco honestly have to lose by being a tax haven?
Yes there is. I wish we could throw them out of the union already.
Shall we also throw them out while we're at it?
And Singapore is not as majority are Chinese/china culture
Simplisticly speaking, they only gain from being tax havens. Point is that everyone else looses. Taxing is a zero-sum situation where if you pay taxes in one place, you don't pay them somewhere else. So this is a nonsensical, because essentially the other countries' taxes are rendered optional. Why pay the whole thing, when you can do some corporate gymnastics and pay less to a tax haven?
It comes down to what in the socialist context is referred to as solidarity. In this case, if you want to tax something, everyone has to agree to that. If there are notable exceptions, it doesn't work. Malta is an example of a notable exception.
Especially the newer EU member states that have been experiencing an incredible amount of brain-drain i.e. people moving to bigger/"richer" countries. Bigger countries profit from that while smaller die out - unless they make themselves more attractive somehow. To some extent its happening within bigger countries as well with urbanisation - in Germany for example villages that are not close to bigger urban centres have the same problem.
Whether you call it a "tax haven" or subsidising - in practice its virtually the same thing. Of course you need some rules in place to prevent creative tax practices by multinationals (like linking taxation to physical presence) - but its a do or die sort of thing.
I'm not really sure if "anti-corruption journalist" accurately describes her work:
https://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2016/09/hot-new-style-wroug...
https://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2015/09/bottom-of-the-barre...
https://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/08/oh-look-whos-here-m...
https://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/
I'm assuming he meant that that is not the writing you'd expect from a so called "anti corruption" journalist.
This reads like articles from a high school newspaper, not investigative journalism into corruption.
TMZ has probably broken a corruption related story in the past, would you call them “anti-corruption” journalists?
http://www.money-go-round.eu/Country.aspx?id=MT
http://www.money-go-round.eu/Country.aspx?id=EL
Heh, it pales in comparison to London when it comes to financial and economic crime. [0] The article may not serve as evidence but it gives you hints. And we're not talking about a nation that has no other choice in order to stay competitive.
People and nations will always find ways to work around the rules to gain more. You have a union of dozens of nations and hundreds of millions of people and you are searching for fair? For all?
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/29/roberto-savian...
(This is kind of like if Alabama were allowed to sell foreigners US citizenship, but the state of Alabama would get to keep all the proceeds.)
I have only visited the island once but I am happy they are part of the EU.
One of the largest tax evasion / money laundry heavens is Denmark (And I say that as a Dane). Malta’s wrong doings is dwarfed by the recent revelations off what Danske Bank did through its Estonian subsidiary.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[0] https://calvinayre.com/2017/11/22/business/malta-gambling-bi...
I presume if you want to accept German players u need to conform to German rules. So how do these online casinos operate inside the EU ?
EDIT: also note that Malta population is 500K. So even one large unicorn can shift the economy numbers.
The Maltese economy is full of money laundering, tax evasion [1, 2], mafia [3], and other gray areas [4, 5] anyway. This article is a puff piece in the travel section, so it's hardly the place for mentioning of the Panama papers or journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia that was investigating online gambling and corruption was killed by a car bomb in 2017 [6].
[0] https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/gambling_en
[1] http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/dodgy-gaming-bu...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40026826
[3] https://www.occrp.org/en/thedaphneproject/how-maltese-online...
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/oct/16/tax-evasion...
[5] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-09-11/why-the-e...
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Caruana_Galizia