The previous governments short sighted and arbitrary tax policies dampened investor confidence Minister of Information and Information Technology, Dr. Bandula Gunawardena told ‘Daily News Finance ’ yesterday.
“With that type of tax regime, how can you expect any foreign investor to invest in Sri Lanka and expect local entrepreneurs to invest?” he asked.
He said that the previous UNP regime was totally responsible for the collapse of the economy and adhoc taxes virtually stopped the private sector going in for new investments and these taxes was a major burden on the banking and other sectors as well. He said that with the new investor friendly tax amendments that were been introduced, investor confidence has returned and this was even evident from the way the stock market behaved last week.
“ I myself had authored two books on the arbitrary tax increases of the previous UNF regime.”
He said that the Pettah Market, which did not close even when the LTTE was attacking Colombo, closed with the tax increases “They reopened now”, he said. The income from agriculture, fishing and livestock will also be made income tax free.
“These vast range of benefits have not been given previously even in a national budget,” the Minister said. “We anticipates that with these tax concessions the closed down business entities will once again be revived.”
The economic development we envisage will outset the revenue loss from tax concessions, the Minister said.
In a major boost for the digital economy, the country’s Information Technology (IT) sector is to be completely exempted from all taxes. IT sector is the only income source that has been totally exempted from all the taxes including income taxes, Value Added Tax (VAT) and Nation Building Tax (NBT).
Dr. Gunawardena said that through this the ICT sector to has received a basket of tax concessions and the private sector should exploit the opportunities and make Sri Lanka an international global IT Hub. “We also expect more high paying employment opportunities to emerge for youth form the ICT sector.”
0 comments: