candidate said yesterday.

The tax scheme, to replace the present "regressive'' system, was still in "the embryonic stage,'' and might not be ready for the impending general election campaign, Mr. Philip Perinchief told The Royal Gazette .

"We're hoping that we might be able to, but it depends on when the election is called,'' the candidate in Pembroke West Central said.

Mr. Perinchief, 48, was elaborating on comments he made at a rally at St.

John's Field in Pembroke on Thursday night, when he said it was "a myth'' that there was no income tax in Bermuda.

"Every tax you pay comes out of your income,'' Mr. Perinchief told about 100 supporters. "If that isn't income tax, I don't know what is.'' But the present system was regressive, because the rich paid the same amount of tax as the poor.

His comments were echoed by another speaker at the rally, Shadow Health and Social Services Minister Mr. Nelson Bascome.

"In Bermuda, it is unequal in terms of what we pay and what they pay,'' Mr.

Bascome said in an apparent reference to United Bermuda Party supporters. "We may need to sit down and talk about this a little more.

"We pay the same as them for our roads, for our lights, for our educational system, but somehow we continuously seem to come out on the down side of it.

What we in the PLP are looking for is equality.'' But PLP campaign co-chairman Mr. Terry Lister denied yesterday his party was proposing income tax for Bermuda.

Mr. Perinchief, a lawyer who is making his first bid for elected office, elaborated on the comments he made at the rally in an interview yesterday.

"Although the PLP have not formally advocated income tax, basically we are discussing what are better ways of distributing the wealth, and just looking at various progressive taxation systems and proportional taxation systems,'' he said.

"You'd look at the whole package,'' he said. "Some people, in fact, would be of such a low level of income that they might not be taxed at all, and in fact might attract a subsidy to bring them up to some liveable wage or liveable existence.'' Mr. Perinchief agreed that income tax was a touchy subject politically, but said: "The myth must be exploded that there is no income tax in Bermuda.'' Hospital levies and pension payments were "in every way, shape, or form taxes out of people's incomes,'' he said.

Mr. Lister did not repudiate Mr. Perinchief's comments, but he said the party did not endorse them.

If elected, the PLP would instruct the public service to review the entire tax structure "and ensure it relates more closely to what people have the ability to pay,'' he said. "That doesn't mean income tax, or anything like that.'' Examples of inequity were that the tax paid on a Mitsubishi car was the same as that paid on a BMW, he said. And land taxes were not closely tied to values.

But, "we will not resort to income tax, because we do not believe it is necessary,'' he said.