The Labour Party’s ONE media has reached a deal with the taxman to start repaying hundreds of thousands of euros in dues.

The deal was cut a few weeks ago after months of negotiations and will see the Labour media paying around €5,000 every month over the course of some 15 years.

It is understood that the Nationalist Party is close to sealing a similar deal to settle dues for its Media.Link.

This time last year, Times of Malta had reported that the country’s two political party media companies owe more than €5 million between them in unpaid VAT.

At the time, ONE and Media.Link had both received a formal notice from tax officials after repeatedly failing to honour agreements to settle years of unpaid VAT.

Last week, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana said the parties were in touch with the fiscal authorities.

He was speaking during a pre-budget event organised by Times of Malta on Friday.

He said he was informed that one party, which he did not name, had even signed up to a new repayment plan which he said it was bound to honour.

Caruana was replying to a question by the head of green party ADPD, Carmel Cacopardo, who asked whether political parties would lead by example in the fight against tax dodgers.

Caruana said the parties had not been given any special dispensation and had sat around a table with the authorities just as other businesses have over the years.

This is not the first time that the political parties have reached deals to repay their tax dues.

According to agreements signed between 2014 and 2015, both ONE and Media.Link were expected to make monthly repayments in excess of €20,000 over and above interest on the amounts due to bring their affairs in order.

However, despite repeated warnings, the two companies, which air partisan political content across an empire of TV, radio and social media, have been regularly defaulting on the payments to cover their VAT payment agreements.