How to do your Income Tax Returns

This is not too complicated.

In June you will receive a green Income Tax return form for the previous calendar year, which must be completed and sent to the tax office by the end of the month.  Some employers deal with all of this, but depending on where you are working you might need to complete the form yourself.  Not difficult.  It's a case of putting in your income, deducting the appropriate expenses (for rent paid or 'ground rent' as it's called, for example) and then seeing what you owe or are owed at the end.

These are the tax bands for an unmarried individual working in Malta as of 2012:





Malta individual income tax rates 2012 (single resident):

Tax base (EUR)	%
8,500	0%
8,501-14,500	15%
14,501-19,500	25%
19,501 and over	35%

You are only taxed on money earned during the year over the €8,500 threshold, as shown above, if you made less than this in the calender year in Malta, you can get the tax you paid back.  You will need an FSE form which you need to get from your employers, and which shows exactly how much you were paid in the year and how much tax you paid.  Whether you are entitled to a refund or not, you may be fined for returning your form late, so if you haven't done it by now you are probably in a spot of bother...



Update:
Got my tax refund back from the good people at the Maltese tax office.  It arrived at the beginning of December, but better late than never and a nice pre-Christmas bonus.