Entire citizenry taxed by new IR Bill: JVP

7 September 2017 09:15 pm

JVP MP Sunil Handunnetti said today everyone in the country had been taxed under the new Inland Revenue Bill which was formulated to satisfy the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the purpose of obtaining an IMF loan.

He said tax concessions granted to medium scale businessmen, senior citizens, semi-government schools and artistes had been removed from the new Bill and even the government claim to reduce the gap between direct and indirect tax is not evident.

"The government introduced direct taxation on mansions, capital gains and casinos are not in use now whereas indirect taxation such as VAT is still in use," the MP said.

He said the government should reduce fraud, corruption and wastage instead of poor people being taxed to increase government revenue.

"Government cannot earn Rs.45 billion from this Bill. It can increase its income by other means such as reducing the losses incurred by SriLankan," the MP said and added that the JVP had submitted 49 amendments to be included in the Bill and proposed that 16 others be removed. (Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera)