COLOMBO, May 6 (NNN-XINHUA) – Sri Lanka lost around one million taxpayers, following tax cuts introduced in late 2019, Finance Minister, Ali Sabry, told parliament yesterday.
The minister said that, the country had 1.5 million taxpayers in 2019, which declined to 1.036 million in 2020.
“By the end of 2021 the number had fallen to 412,000 taxpayers. It is a big problem,” the minister said.
The minister said, there were 29,000 businesses that paid value-added tax in 2019. By 2021 the number had gone down to 9,082.
The 2019 tax cuts cost the Inland Revenue Department approximately 601 billion rupees (1.65 billion U.S. dollars) in tax revenue.– NNN-XINHUA
