- Parents who terminate their employment to care for suffering from a rare disease or disorder, which affects less than 1 in 2,000 Maltese residents, may be entitled to 208 credited contributions whereby the parent would have had to be born between 1st January 1952 and 31st December 1961, and shall not exceed 416 contributions in any period of eight years whereby the parent would have had to be born on or after 1st January 1962. These credits will be considered, if and when required, to fill the missing social security contributions in one’s record during the computation of the pension rate.
- Parents who have a new born or who adopt, will be awarded a one time grant of €300.
- At present, apart from the entitlement to a widow’s pension a further allowance for the children is paid to surviving spouses, which allowance continues to be paid until children reach age 18. If the surviving widow/widower is out of employment this allowance is paid at the weekly rate of €9.32, whilst for employed widowers/widows this allowance is paid at €4.54 weekly. With effect from 2020, widows/widowers will start receiving €10 per week as an additional allowance to their Widows’ Pension.
- A one-time tax refund ranging between €40 and €68 for those earning less than €60,000.
- Taxation for the elderly – Tax bands will be adjusted to ensure that income from pension will remain tax-free. The exempt threshold for pension income is to increase to €15,798 in the case of married couple receiving one pension and to €13,798 in other cases.
- From the year 2020, the first 100 hours of overtime whose basic pay does not exceed €20,000 and who will not hold a managerial position shall be taxed at the rate of 15%.
- €35 one-off payment to families and €15 one-off payment for singles to cover milk and bread price increases.
- Incentives related to private pension scheme renewed – individuals who contribute towards their retirement get a tax incentive, which incentive is up to a maximum of €500 per annum.
- New 62+ savings bond
- Cost of living allowance (COLA) – an increase in income to mitigate rising prices. Employees as well as pensioners to get an increase of €3.49 weekly. Furthermore pensioners will be benefiting from a further increase of €3.51 per week, over-and-above COLA thus amounting to a total increase of €7.00.
- Senior Citizen Grant – The yearly amount of €300 paid to elderly persons who reach 75 years of age who live in their own residence or with their relatives in their own homes and have not been admitted into an institution / hospital will continue to be paid annually. For people aged 80 and over and who reside in their own home, the grant will increase to €350.
- Those elderly who are residing in residential homes and are paying for their stay will also be paid the amount of €300, whilst those over 80 years of age will benefit from another increase of €50.
- Persons who are eligible for payment of the Deficiency Contributory Bonus in view of not being eligible for the payment of a weekly pension due to the number of contributions paid, will continue to receive the €200 or €300 upon reaching the age of 75. Up to the end of the year 2019 the payment of this bonus used to cease upon reaching the age of 75. Moreover, the payment of this bonus will be paid afresh to persons who were entitled and had this bonus cut short due to reaching the age of 75.
- The rate of Invalidity Pension for persons with a full contribution average who are declared by the medical board as severely invalid will be of €161.40 weekly rate (both if married or single). Persons with a lower contribution average will benefit from a pro-rata rate accordingly.
- Service Pension – The total amount of service pension ignored for assessment purposes of a social security pension is being increased by a further €200 to €2,666.
- The pensions percentage top-up increase for the so called delayed retirees came into effect in 2016. This measure was first introduced for employees working in the private sector only. Measure was extended to public sector and public service employees from 2019. In 2020, those public sector or public service employees who retired between 2016 and 2018 and would have been eligible for the percentage increase had it been in force for them during mentioned years, will benefit from the applicable percentage increase too.