Govt. will try to be as flexible as possible with taxes on professional income: state minister

By Sanath Nanayakkare

State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said on Saturday that the stakeholder who is more important pertaining to tax reforms is not those who introduce tax reforms but the community that actually pays taxes at the end of the day.

‘In fact, there is a strong need to explore ways to increase state revenue to meet the government expenditure. In this context, the tax payers are the courageous people that support the progressive journey of the country. They are the ones who help maintain the government, the public services, the people’s wellbeing, the security apparatus and development programmes. So, we believe that we should periodically review the current concern about taxes on professional income. As we introduced these tax reforms, we said that we would look into what changes should be made to them as we go along, so the government would try to be as flexible as possible in terms of the developments.”