A bill to double tax on the purchase of foreign currency was passed last night.

Finance Minister Paula Cox described the move as a “revenue-raising measure” which could yield $15 million in the next financial year.

The foreign currency purchase tax will go up from 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent, Ms Cox said. This means the payment for the purchase of $100 foreign currency will go up from $100.25 to $100.50.

Giving the bill its second reading in the House of Assembly last night, Ms Cox said: “The increase is measured. Its impact is tiny. Its contribution is welcomed. It is fair and reasonable on all counts.” Shadow Finance Minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin argued students travelling to universities overseas would be hit in the pocket.

She said the tax increase would mean her own 21-year-old son, who studies abroad, would have to pay an extra $100.

That money, she said, would have been better spent on a train fare for her son from the airport to his school. “My son is extremely frugal because his mother is poor,” said Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin. “The expenditure required to keep my son at school is extremely high. There’s a class of people that this Government doesn’t even know exists.”