No New Taxes Says Shaw

KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) — Finance and the Public Service Minister, Audley Shaw, says no new taxes will be included in the 2018/19 Estimates of Expenditure

He says revenue inflows have been doing “fairly well” this year, noting that the out-turn at the end of December 2017 was $13 billion ahead of projections.

“Happily, with this trajectory, it is not the Government’s plan to introduce a new tax package in the new Budget that is coming,” the minister indicated.

He was speaking at Mayberry Investments Limited’s monthly Investor Forum at The Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston, yesterday.

Shaw said the Government will, however, focus on implementing non-tax initiatives to ensure that importers in particular “pay their fair share at the wharves”.

To this end, he said the Jamaica Customs Agency has been instructed to take the necessary steps to acquire the requisite modern state-of-the-art X-ray equipment to enable them to scan all incoming containers.

Shaw also advised that Jamaica’s debt is expected to further decline to 107.1 per cent of gross domestic product by the end of the 2017/18 fiscal year on March 31.