Samagi Jana Balawegaya MP Harsha de Silva has said the government has raised several taxes over the past year and introduced new ones, contradicting President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s recent statement that no taxes had been increased.
“As Chairman of the Committee on Public Finance, I know exactly how many taxes this administration has increased over the past year. They have even introduced entirely new taxes,” de Silva said, according to the Daily Mirror.
He named taxes imposed on software exports and digital services, and said taxes on electric vehicles had been doubled. He also questioned the quality of the information being given to the President on the government’s own tax policy.
Room to cut, he argues
De Silva said revenue had come in above expectations — driven mainly by taxes collected on vehicle imports — and that government revenue had risen to more than Rs 5 trillion. On that basis, he said, the administration now has room to reduce taxes.
He was more sceptical about the government’s primary account surplus. That result was partly achieved, he said, by failing to spend money allocated for development projects rather than by underlying fiscal strength.
What the report does not establish
The filing does not date or quote the President’s original remark, so the precise claim de Silva is answering is not on the record here. It gives no rates or effective dates for the software export, digital services or electric vehicle taxes, and no Treasury or Inland Revenue figure is cited against the Rs 5 trillion revenue total or the primary surplus.
No government response is included, and the Committee on Public Finance is not reported to have published findings on the point. De Silva chairs that committee; the remarks are his own and are reported as a political claim, not as a committee determination.
This is a single-source report. No other verified newsroom had carried the remarks at the time of writing.
