PNP says its promised $3.5M income tax threshold is now easier to implement

People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding has declared that financing his party’s ambitious plans to raise the income tax threshold to $3.5 million has become more attainable, following confirmation that the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio is on track to hit its long-sought target.

Speaking at a rally in Portmore, St Catherine, on Saturday, Golding said the confirmation from the Fiscal Commissioner of Jamaica’s adoption of the System of National Accounts 2008 has made it easier to finance the promise.

“Before he published that, we were committed to financing it, but it would have been much harder,” Golding said. “Now that we have had that good news, it makes it even more achievable, easier to deal with,” he said.

As a result of the updated methodology, Jamaica’s debt-to-GDP ratio stood at 62 per cent at the end of the 2024/25 fiscal year and is projected to fall to the 60 per cent target by March 2026. Golding stressed that this milestone, which governments have struggled to reach for 13 years, now provides more room to finance social programmes without derailing fiscal stability.

The PNP said an increase in the income tax programme will cost $55 million, which it said would be funded by national revenue growth. It said that no new taxes will be implemented to deliver the promise, should the PNP win power.

In the meantime, Finance Minister Fayval Williams says Jamaicans must be wary of the PNP and the promise. She said that the government has gone back on its word at least three times concerning how it plans to fund the proposal, which she described as “a desperate effort to trick Jamaicans”.

"Initially, the PNP said they would phase in the increase which they had strongly opposed before. When pressed on the issue of how they would fund it, the PNP then said organic growth of the Jamaican economy would fund their fake promise,” said Williams, who is contesting St Andrew Eastern for the Jamaica Labour Party.

She said that the PNP’s “flip-flop” on the issue indicates it “clearly has no clue how they will fund their fake promise, which is nothing more than a desperate attempt to win votes."

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