There are a little over 300,000 tax payers in Sri Lanka which is just 1.33% of the entire population and hence the tax base has to be widened, said Tax Policy Advisor to the Ministry of Finance Thanuja Perera.
She opined this at the CA Sri Lanka organized post budget seminar yesterday. Perera said that even in the corporate sector there are only around 10% that pay taxes and the government is looking to widen the tax net and increase the tax revenue.
Partner KPMG, Sharmila Jayasekera also said that it’s the same taxpayers that keep on paying taxes and new tax files should be opened from untapped sectors to increase the number of tax files.
Commissioner General Inland Revenue Department, Ranjith Hapuarachchi said that they are on track to collect the new revenue target set by the government though there are some issues which are currently being ironed out. Founder senior partner, N. R. Gajendran said that the budget has not given enough focus to curb corruption and he identified corruption as one of the biggest contributors for Sri Lanka’s economic down turn and also country bankruptcy.
There are more than 9,000 elected politicians including parliamentarians and most of them are involved in corruption and they do go unpunished. Chairman CEO TW Corp (Pvt.) Ltd said that these politicians need huge sums of money to be elected and several ‘canvassers’ of them have even visited his house seeking ‘finances’ during election time for their politician.
He also said that some in the private sector are also in the habit of offering bribes to politicians and officials and only one party should not be blamed.
“Tougher laws and digitalization of tender procedures can be good tools to curb this.”
Commenting on the restructuring proposal of some of the state owned entities like SLT, SriLankan Waters Edge he said that some complex issues in some of them like debt of SriLankan should be first settled. “in addition a conducive economic climate should also be created in the country to woo global investors towards them.”
Managing Director Lanka Wall Tiles Ltd, Mahendra Jayasekera questioned the wisdom of allocating a huge sum of money from the budget for Defense. “I strongly suggest that the bulk of this amount should be invested in the Navy who can increase their fleet and surveillance to stop poaching and save Lanka’s Ocean resources.”
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