Budget 2016 will make life easy for all: Ravi Karunanayake

5 November 2015 06:30 pm

Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said that the budget 2016 will make life very easy for all and everyone will be happy, especially the fixed wage earners.  
The minister said the government has no intention to put burden on the wage earners.

“In terms of taxation, the rich who evade will be compelled to pay taxes whilst those who are compliant will not be burdened,” he said.  

According to the Finance Ministry, 60 percent of the affluent in the country class are not paying taxes.  

For that, the economy needs to be properly structured, reformed and strengthened and the Finance Ministry said that the nudget 2016 would be one such exercise.

The ministry noted that 65 percent of the annual revenue is swallowed by the recurrent expenditure of the public sector salaries (Rs.600 billion) and pension cost of Rs.170 billion.  

If the budget cost is analysed in a different way, out of the annual revenue of Rs.1400 billion, Rs.1300 billion (93 percent) has to be incurred for debt servicing.  
 Minister Karunanayake said the government plans to link the subsidies with employment as Sri Lanka spends about Rs.220 billion annually on subsidies alone. 

According to a survey, those depend on subsidy have become lethargic and the government intends to transform them into productive work force of the country.