End of line for income tax appeals board

The chairman of the board that used to adjudicate income tax appeals, which has now been wound up, has cast doubts on whether a new centralised system will work as efficiently.

Speaking at a press conference announcing the demise of the Board of Special Commissioners (Income Tax), chairman John Consiglio said the board’s work would now be absorbed by the Administrative Review Tribunal.

“This begs the question: Why change a system that delivers? Naturally, the answer could be that other countries are doing the same. Truth is, time will tell whether citizens, who ultimately should be the focal point of any justice system, will be better served by the new structures,” Dr Consiglio said.

The Administrative Review Tribunal is gradually absorbing more than 100 similar boards and tribunals. It will consist of eight panels to deal with appeals from sectors ranging from health and agriculture to transport, the professions, the media and the area of fiscal matters.

On Thursday, the board, composed of Dr Consiglio, Francis Bonello and Carmel Callus, with John Micallef as secretary, met to deliver the last ruling in its 61-year history.During the members’ own 11-year tenure, 2,181 appeals were filed and 80 were pending, Dr Consiglio said.

The board had the power to confirm, reduce or increase tax bills or even declare void assessments issued by the Tax Commissioner. Decisions by the board could not be appealed before any court except on points of law, which would be addressed by the Appeals Court. Over 96 per cent of such cases were subsequently confirmed.A government spokesman said the boards being wound up were costing the state between €1.2 million and €1.8 million every year. The special commissioners ran up a salary bill of €30,000 but had only received just over 2,000 appeals within the lifetime of the present board.

He said the various boards and tribunals “lacked coordination and enough in-depth knowledge to deal with the day-to-day problems faced by the people when dealing with such cases”.The new centralised system would cut the costs of having an individual supporting infrastructure for each board and also make decisions more consistent and transparent. Decisions were now available online and there was “uniformity in the duration of time taken for a case to be decided”.“The people also stand to gain from the Administrative Review Tribunal primarily because it removes the need to go to the various different tribunals or boards scattered around the country and also through a reduction in the expenses related to such cases,” the spokesman said.

Magistrate Gabriella Vella heads the new tribunal and will be supported by a number of assistants, who will be appointed by virtue of their expertise and paid a flat rate of €25 per sitting, which might include more than one case.Asked to compare the costs of the new system with the old one, the government spokesman said comparisons at this stage would be unfair because the functions of the various boards were still being absorbed.