Sri Lanka urgently needs a mini budget: JVP leader

Sri Lanka’s 2016 budget has become a non-entity after eight months of its presentation in parliament following sweeping changes made to it by the Prime Minister in March this year and some amendments proposed by the President last year.

The implementation of the tax proposals has been hampered due to the delay in the enactment of tax amendment bills in Parliament.

This bitter truth in the current status of revenue collection in the country was disclosed by Chief Opposition Parliamentary Whip and JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake when he addressed a fully packed audience of business leaders and cooperate heads at the Sri Lanka Economic Summit in Colombo this week.

He noted that the government should present a mini budget in Parliament soon to tackle the situation and make aware the current fiscal situation to the people of this country who are paying direct and indirect taxes to the government.

The JVP leader noted that the country is running without a budget and no one knows as to how the Finance Ministry is handling the fiscal slippage looming over the economy due to bureaucracy bungling. He added that even ministers were unaware about the current fiscal position.

The Government has presented the Finance Act (Amendment) Bill and several other bills aimed at raising state revenue in parliament by the Finance Minister recently amid opposition protests and these bills are yet to be enacted, parliamentary sources said.

Many changes to income tax, VAT, NBT, ESC, Capital Gains Tax, etc pro- posed in the budget have not been implemented following court cases against VAT and other legal implications due to the delay in the enactment of relevant amendment bills. It will create revenue implications and the additional revenue may not be available in 2016, an Inland Revenue Department (IRD) official said.

The 2016 Mid-Year Fiscal Management Report presented in Parliament by the Finance Ministry revealed that government revenue during the first four months of this year was Rs. 472.7 billion against the estimated Rs. 542.7 billion.

This fiscal slippage was due to the failure to implement tax proposals made in the 2016 budget, the official said adding that they are collecting taxes at 2015 budget rates.