Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Member of Parliament Greg Moss again stood at odds with his party by expressing his disapproval of legislation to enact a Value Added Tax (VAT) as debate got underway in the House of Assembly yesterday.
The Marco City MP said the legislation is a betrayal of the philosophy of the PLP and he noted that he would vote against the bill.

“To enact this bill while the rich people out there are still not paying a dime proportionate to their income – this is wrong, and so I will not be supporting this bill,” Mr. Moss said.

This is just the latest round of Mr. Moss squaring off against his own party over controversial bills. Last week, the Marco City MP was among a group of PLP MPs who raised concern over the compendium of constitutional amendment bills that seek to eliminate gender-based discrimination from the constitution.

The attorney said while he agrees that the government needs to raise revenue, he believes this could be done through the introduction of a number of taxes as opposed to just the imposition of VAT.

He proposed that the government consider implementing income tax.

“My main reason for income tax is that I want to see where the money is coming from for the people who run this country,” he said. “I want the people to have to account to the people as to where they got their money. We have people who come into this House with nothing and within months – a year they are rich. How is that possible?

“We have people sitting in the Customs Department who are building houses totally disproportionate to their incomes. It’s in the Defense Force and the Police Force and all through the government service – how is this happening. Income tax will give us the mechanism to monitor that and to incarcerate people for that.”

Mr. Moss called on his fellow parliamentarians to remember the people they were sent to represent and admonished them not to enact legislation that hurts the people they represent more than it hurts the