CLARKS TOWN, Trelawny — Prime Minister Andrew Holness has signalled the Government’s intention to increase the tax-free threshold on income and urged Jamaicans to ignore a similar promise made by the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) which, he said, has a history of doing the opposite.

Holness made the announcement at a local government election rally in Clark’s Town, Trelawny, on Saturday night, telling a large crowd of green-clad, cheering, Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) supporters that his Administration will deliver a more advanced version of the $1.5-million tax-free measure he had announced in the lead-up to the 2016 General Election.

That announcement electrified the campaign and was regarded as one of the reasons the JLP defeated the PNP in what was a close election.

At the time, the income tax threshold promise was criticised by the PNP, which described it as deceptive and urged voters not to be swayed because the plan was not feasible.

On Saturday Holness recalled that scepticism from the PNP and described the Opposition party as hypocrites, as last September at its annual conference PNP leader Mark Golding had said a government led by him would increase the income tax threshold to $3 million.

“I hear some people talking about 1.5. I don’t know [if] many of you remember [that] 1.5 was an idea that the Jamaica Labour Party, in the 2016 General Election, brought to the people of the country to say to those who are on the pay-as-you-earn system, that we would increase the income tax threshold to $1.5 million so that those people earning $1.5 million or lower would not pay income tax,” Holness said.

“Suddenly I hear some PNP people saying they are going to do 1.5, and I rock back in mi chair and I laugh because if you remember when I came out and I say we are going to do the 1.5, every PNP cuss me and seh it can’t happen. Dem cuss me and seh it going wreck the economy; dem cuss me and seh a voodoo economics [and that] this can’t work,” Holness told the sea of cheering supporters.

“We came in and showed them how to do 1 5. Now, all of a sudden, they are converted to $1 5. All of a sudden, them going around telling people they are going to do 1.5. Jamaica, you cannot listen to people who have never done it before,” he added.

“The way how I describe them is that they are hypocrites! They are hypocrites and tricksters because they never believe in it in the first place. Them criticise it and dem oppose it and now, all of a sudden, dem a come and pretend like them can do it. But anyway, I know that all Jamaica knows that it is the Jamaica Labour Party that will deliver one point five [version] 2.0,” Holness stated.

“We will deliver the next version of 1.5. Have no fear, workers of Jamaica, it is the Jamaica Labour Party that understands how to increase your wages substantially and how to relieve you of taxes, not the PNP. Any time you hear the PNP talk bout tax, run weh from dem or run dem from you,” he said.

“When the PNP took over, every year of PNP — from 2012 to 2015 — they put on a new tax on the people, every year. It is the Jamaica Labour Party that reduced the tax on income by increasing the tax threshold; it is the Jamaica Labour Party that reduced GCT from 16.5 [per cent] to 15 per cent — and that benefits all Jamaicans. And it is the Jamaica Labour Party that has run the economy so well that we have not put any new taxes on the people of Jamaica for the eight years that we have been running the economy,” Holness said.

The local government election is scheduled for February 26.