Holness promises to shame doubters of 10-point plan
JAMAICA LABOUR Party (JLP) Leader Andrew Holness says that the party’s internal polls have shown a swing in voter support for the party despite recent polls showing it is slightly behind the ruling People’s National Party (PNP).
Speaking with journalists in his West Central St Andrew constituency, Holness said that the JLP would soon be releasing some of the results from its polls.
“Our polls have shown that there is a swing to the Jamaica Labour Party, and you are going to see some surprises in some seats,” he said.
Holness was speaking just after he was nominated as the JLP’s candidate for the constituency at the Waltham Park Educational Centre yesterday afternoon.
He will be challenged by the PNP’s Patrick Roberts.
In the meantime, the JLP leader said that the PNP has been having nightmares since he announced the 10-point plan he said he would implement if his party wins the next general election.
He said that the plan had also been informed by the party’s internal polls.
PLAN DETAILS
According to Holness, when the party releases, tomorrow, details of the plan to relieve people making $1.5 million or less of their tax obligations, one of its chief critics, Finance Minister Dr Peter Phillips, will be embarrassed.
“We’re going to respond to Peter Phillips on Thursday, and when we do, Peter Phillips will hang his head in shame because as a minister of finance, he should have better particulars of what we have put out because he has the data,” Holness said.
Phillips has described the income tax plan by the JLP as inequitable, unworkable, extraordinarily complex, and retrograde.
Phillips has claimed that the proposal would see a worker who earns just over $1.5 million having a tax liability of $225,000 more than the worker who earns $1.5 million.
The finance minister said that the move would introduce untimely distortions and inequities into the tax-payment arrangements.