JIS:

Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Audley Shaw, has denied reports in the press suggesting that the general consumption tax will be raised in April.

"Nonsense. That is speculation," Shaw said, as he addressed the 2009 Kingston Money Expo, hosted by Today's Money Limited, at the Hilton Kingston hotel, New Kingston, yesterday.

He said the Government would be seeking to widen the tax net.

"We need to spread the burden. Everybody needs to accept responsibility for our roads, our schools, our hospitals. "We are going to be having a distinct feature of international tax administration and domestic tax administration. We have already started the process of merging the Taxpayer Audit and Assessment (department) with Inland Revenue and the Taxpayer Services Department in order to facilitate better information flows between auditing and compliance," he said.

Shaw was fielding questions on the taxation levels after his presentation on 'Government's Strategic and Tactical Response in a Challenging Economy'.