Budget Debate: We don’t support the $18 billion tax package, says Robinson
Opposition Spokesman on Finance, Julian Robinson has chided the Government over its $18 billion tax package.
Robinson, who is making his contribution to the 2026-2027 Budget Debate at Gordon House, argued that the imposition of new taxes in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa is unconscionable.
Pointing to the how Jamaicans will be impacted, Robinson said, “They will now pay more on their grocery bills at the supermarket because the government has chosen to impose a new tax package of $18 billion”.
READ: Nearly $30b in new taxes on sweetened beverages, cigarettes, pure alcohol and tourism activities
“Increasing the burden on the average Jamaican through higher taxes is not the right call at this time. And we on this side do not support it,” Robinson added.
He told the House that if the People’s National Party were at the wicket, “this is not the shot we would have played”.
“When an economy is contracting, meaning it is slowing down, raising taxes is a procyclical response. What that means in practice is that you are applying pressure in the same direction as the problem, rather than against it. The economy is already shrinking,” said Robinson.
Continuing, he declared the tax base to have been weakened, “first by 10-years of low growth under that (Jamaica Labour Party) administration, and then by the hurricane. Businesses are earning less. Households are spending less. And the government’s chosen response to that reality is to extract more revenue from an already financially stressed population”.
Robinson asserted that this approach does not sustainably address the fiscal challenge.
“You are compounding the economic problem. The more appropriate response in these circumstances is countercyclical – you push against the slowdown in the economy, you stimulate activity and create the conditions for the tax base to recover organically”.
Robinson argued that a growing economy generates more revenue over time than any package of new taxes imposed on people who are already struggling to stay afloat.
“And beyond the timing, there is the question of who actually carries this burden. These measures fall disproportionately on lower-income Jamaicans, including the elderly, the very people who are still trying to recover from Melissa,” he said.
