No concerns over Panama company, PM insists

Mizzi trust: PM brushes off suggestions of fiscal immorality

Joseph Muscat has again stood by energy minister Konrad Mizzi, saying he finds no problem that the new Labour deputy leader is the settlor of an offshore trust in New Zealand, whose beneficiaries are his family members.

“Everything is registered,” Muscat told the press today. “He would have had a problem if he had not declared a Maltese company. There would have been a problem had he not declared it.”

The prime minister has told the press that Mizzi will be filing his declaration of assets in parliament together with other ministers.

He said he was unaware as to whether other Cabinet members had similar offshore trusts, and denied owning any such companies.

When asked by MaltaToday whether it was fiscally immoral that the energy minister could use an offshore trust to minimise his tax on assets, Muscat said that no funds had been deposited in the company that is administering the trust.

MaltaToday understands that a Panamanian company could be administering the assets in the New Zealand trust, although this fact has not been reliably established.