Senior tax officers arrested over €200,000 waiver

Two senior officials in the Inland Revenue Department have been arrested in connection with an investigation into a dubious waiver of more than €200,000 in taxes owed. The two were arrested on Wednesday last week and held overnight after the police raided their offices and seized the hard drives of their office computers. The story goes back to 2004 when the Inland Revenue Department opened a case against two brothers after they received interest payments in the range of €100,000 when they had never declared any income. An investigation established that the two failed to report income in the range of € 500,000. The brothers protested and before the appeal tribunal had taken a decision, a recorded tax bill of some €200,000 on the department’s system went down to zero. mmicallef@timesofmalta.com