Prime Minister Andrew Holness has lashed the parliamentary Opposition for rubbishing the stated position of the Government that it has not imposed any new taxes on Jamaicans for nine consecutive budgets.

Opposition Leader Mark Golding on Tuesday questioned the veracity of the repeated claim by Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke of no new taxes, when he made his contribution to the 2024/25 Budget Debate.

“The minister likes to make a song-and-dance about no new taxes imposed since over $30 billion of new taxes was imposed in the first two years of the JLP Government elected in 2016. However, it is important to recognise that the taxes being collected from the Jamaican people have risen dramatically under this government,” Golding said.

He outlined that in fiscal year 2015/16, which was the final year of the last People’s National Party Administration, the tax collected was J$411.8 billion, which was 24 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

He presented a table which showed that much more in taxes is being collected under the current JLP Administration.

“Tax collected is now over 28 per cent of GDP. Jamaicans are taxed much more under this JLP Government,” Golding insisted.

He told the House that over the four fiscals years 2021/22 through 2024/25, tax collections have increased by J$419 billion.

“J$419 billion of additional taxes has been collected from the Jamaican people over the past four years. That is an increase of 66 per cent, which is way more (in fact, more than double) the accumulated inflation of 31 per cent over that four-year period,” Golding remarked.

“Looking at tax collection from the perspective of each Jamaican, since this JLP Government came to office they have more than doubled the annual tax take from every man, woman and child in Jamaica, increasing it by a massive $190,000 per person (to total $342,000 per person of taxation in the 2024/25 Budget),” said Golding.

During his contribution to the debate on Thursday, Holness accused the Opposition of spreading lies.

“It is a puzzle to the Opposition, how a government can eliminate some taxes completely, relieve significant numbers of persons from paying taxes, reduce the tax rate itself, and still increase the tax revenue collected.

“They have now resorted to spreading an outright lie that the government has increased taxes in order to explain what they don’t understand, or are too ashamed to admit their government has never been able to do this,” Holness said.

He added that “They cannot admit that more Jamaicans are employed now than at any other time, so more Jamaicans have income and purchasing power. The new hotels that have been built, the new BPOs and construction projects, the small businesses and medium enterprises all contribute their fair share to the tax revenue”.

The prime minister pointed out that wage levels have increased, and more persons are seeing the benefit of joining the formal economy, by becoming compliant and contributing to the tax pool.

“The government in turn takes these tax revenues and return it to the citizens in ways that increase quality of life. We have increased public sector wages, we have increased expenditure on national security, health, education, water, pensions and social security. Moreover, we have used your taxes to bring down debt servicing, which creates more room to spend on the things that matter to you,” said the prime minister.

He said: “I can understand why the Opposition would continue to lie about taxes, they have never been in this position and quite frankly they don’t know how to get to this position of financing a budget mainly from tax revenues without increasing taxes.”

The prime minister boasted that his government has created a stable and robust macroeconomic environment of fiscal certainty which supports employment and income generation, capital investment, and increased economic activity.

“This has allowed my Administration, the Andrew Holness Administration, to present nine consecutive budgets with no net new taxes. More than that, my administration has actively reduced the tax burden on the people of the country,” he said.