As the politicians and Commissioner of Inland Revenue consider a new Permanent Residents Scheme, I and others have constructively criticised, and offered suggestions on various aspects of the old scheme. It is to be hoped that the relevant officials are prepared to take into account valid points made by various sections of the local, financial community as well as by sophisticated expatriates whose knowledge of international tax regimes and incentive residence schemes is often quite extensive.
My concerns expressed in an earlier letter (Resident Investors And Pole Dancers, March 25) was that under the old scheme a non-EU citizen who remitted to Malta modest income could qualify, while another who remitted instead very large amounts of capital to generate significant amounts of income and tax in Malta, could not.
Apart from this and others’ criticisms, I now note that the Department for Citizenship and Expatriate Affairs still requires a third country national who holds a permit under the scheme to apply for a one-year residence permit quite independent of the requirements of the Commissioner of Inland Revenue (ref: departmental document CEA\L\8). So as things stand, even if a wealthy immigrant acquires the permit under the Permanent Residents Scheme, he is still obliged to satisfy the Department for Citizenship and Expatriate Affairs each year, by way of independent application.
In short, despite his permanent residence permit from the Commissioner of Inland Revenue, he is still going to be sitting on that bench with the eastern European ladies at the Department for Citizenship and Expatriate Affairs every year, applying for another immigration permit. What is the political point of this? I suggest that in most cases this requirement does in fact render an application for permanent residence pointless, as the whole idea is to offer the incentive of certainty and security of residence.
Hopefully the two departments can work together to avoid this situation when and if a new scheme is promulgated.
(Parenthetically, as things stand, the only way to avoid annual applications is an application for the so-called “long-term resident status” from the Department for Citizenship and Expatriate Affairs. However the spurious prerequisite, inter alia, of 100 hours of training on the “social, economic, cultural and demographic history and environment of Malta”, with examinations, effectively ensures that no one would make such an application. I naïvely hope that that was not the intention. If my country had imposed such a requirement on the mass of Maltese immigrants in the 1960s, there might not be any Maltese-Canadians today.)
In all of the foregoing, I intend no criticism whatever of my friend Joseph Mizzi, director of the Department of Citizenship and Expatriate Affairs, who, based on my contact with him, carries out his duties professionally in difficult circumstances.