8 September 2022 05:39 pm Views - 1256
The Social Security Contributions Levy is the reintroduction of the Nation Building Tax (NBT) in a different name, National People's Power (NPP) MP Vijitha Herath said today.
He told Parliament that this tax was introduced by former Finace Minister Basil Rajapaksa when the Value Added Tax (VAT) was 8%.
He said there was no authenticity to introduce this tax now as the VAT was increased to 15% from the interim budget.
"When this new tax of 2.5% was imposed, total tax amount will increase to 20 to 21%. This is a tax upon tax, and it is against the tax policy," he said.
MP Herath said the software developed by the Inland Revenue Department with the assistance of a Singapore Company at a cost of Rs. 5 billion to be used for NBT is not compatible with the new tax.
He said an additional Rs. 2 billion will have to be used to develop a software for this new tax. (Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera)