The cabinet has given the green light to revise the tax policy, policy actions and introduce a new tax regime amending 54 tax related Acts for an accelerated economic revival in the post Covid 19 situation, co cabinet spokesman and Minister Udaya Gammanpila said yesterday.
Addressing the weekly cabinet news briefing, Minister Gammanpila stressed that the government’s target was to improve the living standard of most vulnerable groups of the society in the aftermath of the Covid 19 pandemic.
“To meet these goals, we will have to double export revenue, kick start the tourist industry and revive the construction industry, grow all food varieties, spices, fruits and vegetable and restrict imports of them. The new tax regime expected to strengthen this process,” Minister Gammanpila stressed.
According to the cabinet memo presented to the cabinet by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the government would introduce a simple yet accountable, efficient tax methodology so that it would be a tailor - made application for all the stakeholders in the economy including commuters, workforce, entrepreneurs as well as tax payers, he added.
The Government has taken precautionary measures to issue state finance and financial catalysis for all the stakeholders in the economy including low income holders, entrepreneurs, micro, small and medium scale entrepreneurs, those engaged in tourism and the farmers in order to minimize the negative impacts caused to the production activities as well as the employments due to COVID - 19 pandemic. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka having the intention of easing the financial crisis on the shoulder of the entrepreneurs has taken steps to enhance the liquidity of the financial market.
It is expected that the economy will be back to normalcy during the latter part of the year 2020 as a result of these remedies and the Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal submitted by the Minister of Finance to table the draft bills prepared by the Legal Draftsman in the Parliament after publishing them in the government gazette notification in order to revise the following acts accordingly.
Nation building tax, Economic services fees act, Ports and aviation development tax Financial act, Inland Revenue Act and the Value added tax act will be amended accordingly.
(Daily Mirror)