TAXING REFUNDS

Tax law makes my teeth itch and my eyes bleed, to say nothing of my head spin and ears pop, so it’s not my academic interest that has been piqued by the story of the day, namely the one about the Alternattiva Demokratika taking the Government to task about whether VAT should have been charged on the registration tax paid when people bought a second-hand car.

Or something like that: I told you, I hate tax law.

And nor is my interest selfish, as I wasn’t hit by the tax. The son and heir might benefit from the challenge, but I won’t be seeing a red, blue or mauve cent of the refund he might eventually get.

That having been said, the story is interesting.

Not so interesting, to be fair, is the fact that the AD started their case first, for all the song and dance Labour are making about their own little stunt.

If I recall procedural law correctly, this means that the AD’s case – if they move along with it – will get on track before Labour’s, because Labour still have to file their preliminary intimation. It’s an amendment to the law that the Labour Government had introduced many, many years ago – you have to make a preliminary challenge a few days before you go forward on the merits.

Talk about being hoist by your own petard – pipped at the post by the little guys.

No, this is not the interesting bit – in these lines, my interest lies in the way Labour’s supporters have interpreted the whole jamboree.

Let’s be clear about a few things: if the Revenue has got its sticky fingers on a single solitary cent of the tax-payers’ which was not due to it, then they should be made to pay it back, with interest and costs. However, tax law being the arcane and labyrinthine jungle that it is, which is why I can’t stand it, far be it from me to gainsay the experts, on either side of the theoretical divide.

I certainly will not put my hand on my heart and say that I think that the Revenue is correct in its interpretation. In truth, I’d be prone to say that there is no way that it is.

In the first place, the ladies and gents from the Revenue are well known for their penchant to devise all manner of ways and means of relieving the citizen of his or her hard-earned dosh, and in the second place, now that they’ve said the tax was due, there isn’t a self-respecting tax-man or woman in the world who is going to back-track and say “here you are, nice Mr Citizen, have some euros back”.

It’s much more likely that a herd of pigs will do a fly-past.

Equally clear in my mind am I that if I were in Labour’s shoes, I’d have turned the whole thing into a circus too.

What is more likely to enamour me of the great unwashed than trying to get back some euros from the dreaded VAT Department and this in connection with the apple of most Maltese’s eye, the fabled “light car”, to boot?

And if you’re going to have a circus, well, darn it, have a good one, even though a single case, with a single plaintiff, would have served pretty much the same effect.

But what is interesting, for those of us who like to muse on these things, is the way the afore-mentioned great unwashed have turned this into a demonstration of Labour’s might and munificence. More than somewhat peculiar, that.

Firstly, is anyone surprised that people are trooping up to try to get some money back from the Government? It would have been as surprising as turkeys voting for Xmas if they hadn’t. So this is not quite the grass-roots show of support for Labour that it’s being touted to be: it’s a show of support for filling one’s wallet, that’s what it is.

And secondly, let’s have less starry-eyed naivety about Labour being so all-fired concerned for the citizenry – it’s not as if the Labour Party is putting its hands in its collective pockets and paying back the tax itself, subrogating itself in the rights of the people who were being refunded. Labour is interested, quite rightly, in embarrassing the Government.

Thirdly, there’s no guarantee that the refund thesis is correct: the mere fact that so many people have signed up means only one thing at this stage. It only means that so many people bought cars and want some cash back. Court cases aren’t won by measuring the number of people who want their version of the law to be the correct one.

That type of court is “the people’s court”, and frankly, it’s the type of court you want to live without, unless you’re pining for Madame La Guillotine.

All that having been said, the masses are revolting, or so they think, so who am I to deny them their fun? And if they get some cash back, good luck to them.