VAT judgment had ‘nothing to do’ with pending registration tax cases

In a statement this evening, the Finance Ministry said that yesterday's judgment concerning William and Anna Grech over their imported second hand Land Rover Freelander from the UK, has nothing to do with the pending cases sponsored by Labour over VAT and registration.

"Yesterday's case concerns a particular issue where an individual who personally bought a car from the UK before 2008 and had registered the car in his name and not a dealer. The transaction was made in the UK, and was not taxable in Malta under VAT law.

"The court did not allow the Tax Department's submissions that the tax imposed on the purchased vehicle was intended to protect the market from any unfair or distorted competition," the ministry said, adding that government was in fact exonerated from any responsibility, and found Transport Malta to be responsible for wrongly transposing the law.