David Thake breached parliament’s ethical standards by failing to declare his shareholding in a company and by falling behind on his companies’ tax payments, the standards commissioner has concluded.
Thake, a former Nationalist Party MP, quit parliament earlier this year after Times of Malta revealed that his companies owed hundreds of thousands of euro in unpaid VAT.
He had initially suspended himself from the PN but and asked parliament’s standards commissioner, George Hyzler, to investigate his affairs.
Thake had argued that the money owed to the taxman was in the form of VAT payments that were deferred through a COVID-19 aid scheme for businesses.
“The VAT owed was not accumulated over the 10 years [when the accounts were not filed], they are from during the pandemic. These deferred taxes need to be paid not only by my business, but all businesses who made use of the scheme", Thake said at the time.
Labour Party candidate – now MP – Cressida Galea had also written to Hyzler to ask him to investigate Thake’s financial affairs, following the Times of Malta report.
In his probe, Hyzler found that Thake’s companies had failed to file the proper paperwork for periods stretching back to 2012.
One of Thake’s companies owed just over €230,000 in unpaid VAT for years stretching from 2015 to 2021, while the other had dues of around €500,000 related to 2020 and 2021 which were all eligible for deferral as part of the COVID-19 aid scheme.
Thake also told the commissioner that he held a 50 per cent stake in a third company, a holding firm, which however is not operational and has all its affairs in order.
The commissioner took note of those facts and concluded that the former MP had fallen short of the standards expected of him.
“It is clear that the bad administrative practices of the companies that Mr Thake was involved in and responsible for were not recent,” the commissioner concluded, noting that work to fix the shortcomings only began after the issue came to public light.
And while many businesses deferred their tax payments to boost their cash flows, with that practice seemingly “tolerated” by authorities, MPs had to be held to higher standards, Hyzler said.
Parliamentarians “should avoid acting in an objectionable way, even if such behaviour is common among private persons,” he said as he concluded that Thake had breached MPs’ ethics.
It was also a clear breach for Thake to have failed to declare his shareholding in a holding company, albeit one that is not operational. MPs are obliged to list all their assets in an annual declaration.
However, given that Thake has since resigned from parliament, Hyzler said he now considered the case closed.
The report was published on September 30.