Expat Couple In Malta Forced To Cough Up Thousands In A Month Or Face Fines After Tax Return Error Last Year
A French-Turkish couple was forced to foot a bill of nearly €4,000 within a month or face interest payments after receiving an inflated tax return.
In 2019, the couple, who married in Malta that year, received a tax return that seemed to show a faulty figure of €3,925.
“We were shocked because we weren’t expecting to get that much. We thought the number wasn’t correct, so we immediately went to the tax office to verify whether it was real,” Turkish expat Maria* told Lovin Malta.
However, a tax department officer reassured her that the amount was correct.
“I asked several times and the lady at the desk confirmed it was correct – ‘this money is yours’, she said. Once I got the verbal approval, my husband and I went to cash the cheque to pay off our studies,” she said, adding she had completed a masters in Malta while her husband finished a Masters in France.
The graduate couple said they had revisited the tax department again in June 2020 to confirm that all their documents were in order.
Five months later, they received a letter confirming there had been an error and that the tax return was overstated by €3,780.
Maria, who finished her post-graduate degree in 2017, had benefitted from an educational scheme called Get Qualified. It’s an initiative to help students reading for diplomas or degrees with tuition, allowing them to recover a part of the costs incurred with a tax credit.
The error arose because she was sent the payment again, despite receiving it two years prior.
The letter said the €3,780 that was erroneously submitted must be paid back within a month and that a failure to do so will see them charged with interest payments.
Maria managed to collect the sum from friends and family to avoid paying interest. But the incident is only another hit for the couple’s livelihood, with Maria’s husband set to be made redundant after operational changes in his company.
“I really don’t understand – even after we confirmed that the amount was correct, they wouldn’t even explain why the figure was so high. This isn’t like paying €50 in one month of notice.”
“I know I have to pay it back, but we just didn’t have that kind of money, especially in these difficult times. I have to pay for a mistake that is not mine.”
Lovin Malta has reached out to the Tax Department but has received no response at the time of writing.
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