The House of Assembly last night approved increased land tax for commercial properties, aimed at creating additional revenue for Government.

The Land Tax Amendment Act 2015 will raise rates for commercial properties from 4.4 per cent to 5.5 per cent.

Finance Minister Bob Richards said the act would raise more than $4 million in additional revenue. Mr Richards said the increase would impact around 3,000 properties, with the average property owner paying an additional $1,500 per annum.

Shadow Finance Minister David Burt said that he understood that Government needs to raise additional revenue and the proposed increase would “spread the burden”.

However, he said that the reason Government was looking to increase taxes was because Mr Richards had weakened the economy by cutting spending too much in the last budget. He said the 2014/15 Budget was the “very definition of austerity” at a time when the economy was weak, resulting in lost jobs, a larger debt and record spending on financial assistance.

“The Minister of Finance got it wrong last year,” Mr Burt said. “He has to at least admit that maybe the cuts that he put in the budget last year were a little too quick, a little too fast.”

His sentiments were echoed by Zane DeSilva, who suggested that a rate increase could be extended to those who own multiple residential properties.

Opposition Leader Marc Bean, meanwhile, said the revenues could have been raised through economic diversification if Government had acted last year.

“This is a tax that would give short-term benefit, but it can have long term consequences,” he said, suggesting lowering taxes and reducing regulations would be better to jump-start the economy.

Mr Richards responded that the Government had “caught a falling knife” when they were elected, saying: “It was our duty to catch the knife, to bleed, but we had to stop it from falling.”

As of press time last night, the House was also debating the Payroll Tax Amendment Act, which would extend payroll tax from 14 per cent to 14.5 per cent and rolls back some of the payroll tax exemptions in the hospitality

sector.