• Officials from the IRD, Customs and Excise Dept. were summoned to discuss matters

Chairperson of National Council sub-committee on identifying short-and medium-term programmes related to economic stabilisation Patali Champika Ranawaka said that the proposals related to earning Rs. 3500 billion, which is the expected government revenue next year, will be included in his second committee report.

 Sub-committee chairman mentioned this recently where the officials from the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), Sri Lanka Customs and the Excise Department were summoned to the committee to discuss matters related to raising the government’s revenue next year. The programme expected to be implemented by the above institutions to earn the expected income for the year 2023 was discussed here.

Special attention was paid to the factors that caused the country to become economically bankrupt. Among the reasons for this, there was a lengthy discussion on the decrease in the amount of tax files of the Inland Revenue Department from 14 lakhs to 5 lakhs and the amount of tax revenue lost to the government due to the tax revision enforced from December 01, 2019.

The committee chairman said that as revealed by the “Annual Report on Global Integrity”, a lot of money leaves the country annually due to high prices or low prices in the import and export process of the country, as well as by airplanes or ships.

Opinions were also expressed about the introduction of a taxation system based on facts such as electricity bill, telephone bill and vehicle ownership. It was also discussed that there is a surplus of ethanol production in the country and the possibility of exporting that amount.