President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said the government expects to raise the Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) tax threshold again in the 2027 Budget, which is due to be presented to Parliament next week.

Speaking at the National Trade Union Convention in Colombo on Saturday, the President said the existing PAYE threshold had already been lifted from Rs 100,000 to Rs 150,000, and that the government intends to raise it further to give salaried employees additional relief, the Daily Mirror reported.

No new threshold figure was given, and the filing attaches no date, no revenue cost and no band structure to the commitment. What was announced is the direction, not the number.

Salary increases alone were not enough

The President said the government recognises the private sector’s contribution to the national economy and is paying particular attention to the economic wellbeing of its employees. Discussions had been held with private-sector institutions and business associations, he said, after which steps were taken to increase employees’ basic salaries.

He acknowledged that raising basic salaries alone was insufficient to deliver meaningful financial relief, and said the government had therefore also considered supplementary allowances. PAYE deductions on higher salaries remained an important concern, he said, and a further adjustment to the threshold was expected in the coming Budget.

That is the substantive point in the announcement: it concedes that pay rises are partly absorbed by the tax they attract, and frames the threshold change as the remedy.

Dissanayake said the government had a responsibility to protect the interests and economic security of employees across all sectors — state, semi-government, plantation and private.

The Budget is on 12 November

The 2027 Budget is scheduled to be presented to Parliament on 12 November 2026, consistent with the Daily Mirror’s description of it as due “next week”.

Saturday’s convention was the trade union instalment of the government’s two-year anniversary programme, held at the P.D. Sirisena Grounds in Colombo. Reports filed before the event opened could not say what the President would announce; this is what he announced.

An earlier pledge, at the same venue

A week earlier the President made a broader tax commitment at a different convention — and, as it happens, at the same ground.

Addressing the National Convention of the National Intellectuals Organisation at the P.D. Sirisena Grounds on Saturday 31 October, he pledged further tax cuts in the Budget while insisting they would not jeopardise the revenue target, the Daily FT reported on 2 November.

“In 2025, we exceeded the revenue target: our revenue reached 110% of the estimated level… after taking power, we did not impose a single new tax. We also reduced existing taxes to a considerable extent. In the forthcoming Budget, too, we will reduce some taxes. But we will do so without jeopardising our revenue target.”

In the same address he said public debt, about 114% of GDP in 2022, would be brought down to between 90% and 95%; that the country recorded its lowest budget deficit in recent times last year alongside a current account surplus of US$1.8 billion, the largest in its history, against only about three previous surpluses all at or below roughly US$300 million; and he attributed the rising cost of living mainly to higher energy costs flowing from conflict in the Middle East.

This was a separate speech to a separate audience, and is set out here as context rather than as corroboration of Saturday’s remarks. The Daily FT report does not mention PAYE thresholds; the Daily Mirror report of Saturday’s convention does not mention the revenue target. The two together establish that tax relief has been a consistent theme in the President’s pre-Budget appearances, not that two newsrooms covered one event.

Not reported

No filing gives the new PAYE threshold the government has in mind, the cost to revenue of raising it, or the date from which any change would apply. Neither says whether the measure has been discussed with the International Monetary Fund, whose programme sets Sri Lanka’s revenue floor — a material question, given that the move from Rs 100,000 to Rs 150,000 was itself negotiated. No union response to the announcement is reported, and no attendance figure is given for the convention.

A note on sourcing: several widely circulated accounts of this announcement carry detailed personal income tax band figures. This desk could not trace those figures to a current, dated report from a verified newsroom — the nearest matches are filings from the earlier round of PAYE changes — and they are not reproduced here.