Tax concessions for small businesses, subsidies for select groups

State minister gives highlights of 2018 Budget proposals

Tax concessions for small and medium scale businesses, and targeted subsidies to selected groups are among highlights of next month’s budget proposals.

The Government is also set to scale down obtaining of foreign loans for mega projects, instead it will focus on Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) projects in view of the foreign debt repayment dues.

State Minister of Finance Eran Wickremaratne told the Sunday Times that a mechanism to offer targeted subsidies to selected groups, tax concessions for small and medium scale businesses and scaling down on loans for mega projects would be among highlights of the budget proposals to be submitted on November 9.

The budget proposals, now being final- ised, would include subsidies for low-income groups, farmers and consumers instead of reducing prices of selected food items. The objective would be to prevent the middleman from making extra profits where there were blanket reduction of prices, .