Tax reforms only to ensure there is no economic crisis in future: Shehan

The proposed reformation of taxes is only to ensure there is no economic crisis in the future and the current economic crisis will end soon with the taxation even though there will be a burden to each and every one for some time, State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe said.

Attending the Annual General Meeting of the Department of Inland Revenue, the State Minister emphasized that the revenue collection is one responsibility of the Department of Inland Revenue, and is a critically challenged topic locally and internationally.

"Different Governments at different times, the policy decisions have been taken. At the moment we are having the lowest revenue against the GDP as one of the countries that has a lowest revenue. The thing that is critical here can be seen as the lack of resources like Oil and Gas," he said. 

“In the interim budget, couple of amendments have been done. The revenue measures are imposed knowingly that all of us would be in further pressure. However these reformations are required to make sure that we do not have any economic crisis in the future,” he added.

Adding to that, State Minister said, "These measures can be painful and will not be famous. Instead, we have to ensure that there is no economic crisis in the future. 6% global growth in 2021 has been slowed down to 3.2% in 2022 and will slow down to 2.7% in 2023 so this indicates that we will be under pressure for some time. This global growth will be the weakest growth since 2001 therefore all of us will be impacted heavily. All the countries are in an economic crash which means we also are yet to be experienced more."

He said that the government will surely ensure that the prevailing tax structure will come to a reasonable level where the people would not be in these difficulties in future.

Speaking on IMF discussions, the State Minister said that the government ensure that all the matters including Sri Lanka’s debt treatment policy will be taken into consideration. 

"The IMF discussions are undergoing. All our partners, with bilateral official creditors have ensured that they will support Sri Lanka. We are glad that Sri Lankan authorities and the IMF have come to a staff level agreement. It is interpreted in many ways but with a political or genuine view. The ones who talks against the reforms or the recovery of the country are not aware of the pressure people are going through right now", he added further.