Unfiled VAT return comes back to haunt Paul Borg Olivier

Nationalist Party general secretary Paul Borg Olivier yesterday said that his failure to file a VAT return covering June to August 2006 had been an “oversight” and that he had genuinely thought it had been submitted.

When contacted following reports that appeared in other media, Dr Borg Olivier said he had regularised his position with regard to the missed return two years before being elected to his post.

Dr Borg Olivier has been summoned to appear in a criminal court over his failure to submit the return within the 75-day time window. The period in question dates back to two years before he was elected to his PN post.

He was yesterday asked for his reaction to comparisons being made between his case and that of former parliamentary secretary Chris Said, who resigned after an appeals court ordered that criminal action be taken against him for alleged perjury. He replied that notwithstanding the summons brought against him, his position had been “regularised with the VAT Department”.

Legal sources said that it was a standard practice for the Commissioner of VAT to invoke Article 83 of the VAT Act and withdraw proceedings at his request once the position is regularised by the summoned party.

Dr Borg Olivier said he learned of the proceedings when he was contacted by the newspaper MaltaToday days before he was notified of the summons.

“I was surprised to hear about this from MaltaToday, which confirmed in its report of having seen the summons before I was actually notified of the summons. It was news to me,” he said.