Editorial
Income tax
It is very clear at present that the new income tax net cast by the Ranil Wickremesinghe government has provoked a situation that may well become unmanageable and ominous signs of this are clearly emerging. Strident protests from groups including doctors, university academics and others including port and airport employees and many others have been becoming increasingly strident over the past several days. Hints of direct trade union action, obviously meaning strikes, have been made. Whether a government, already on the back foot following Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF) Convenor Vasantha Mudalige’s release on bail and angry public opinion railing against blatant efforts to postpone the scheduled local elections. can fend off the tax protests remains to be seen.
All those protesting on this account well know that the government is desperately cash strapped and needs to urgently harness revenue to keep the wheels of state turning. On its part, the government also is too well aware of the inability of most of the protesters to bear the new income tax burden in the face of galloping inflation, particularly food, electricity and a host of other goods and services are concerned. But there is very little that it can do about it. Wickremesinghe’s and his government’s obdurate refusal to abandon or cut down on Saturday’s 75th Independence anniversary bash, said to have cost Rs. 200 million, has only aggravated public fury about the new income tax burden placed upon the people.
The very small number of personal income tax payers in this country have always felt unfairly treated, believing they have been singled out for harsh treatment while the vast majority remained untouched. They could not be more wrong. All the people of the country pay taxes and how! As one famous newspaper editor of the past pungently put it, “every time you strike a match or flush the toilet, you are paying a tax.” We all know the platitude that the only thing that is certain in life is death and taxes. Indirect taxes unlike those that are direct (like income tax) by far account for the lion’s share of tax revenue. Populations of developed countries, particularly in Europe and North America, pay high income taxes. But they, unlike us in Sri Lanka, get good returns for what they pay. We, in this land like no other, can only grin cynically when we see signs proclaiming “Your tax rupees at work” at road digs and construction sites and think “like hell” to ourselves.
Equity is a basic principle of taxation long ignored in this country. Go back to 1977 and the early years of opening our long shackled economy by the J.R. Jayewardene government with Ronnie de Mel as finance minister. That was when public service emoluments were freed of income tax on the argument that top public servants were paid much less than their private sector counterparts and this hindered government’s ability to hold competent managers in the public sector hierarchy. The contention was not altogether without merit but there were many fallacies as well. Public servants from the colonial days have enjoyed non-contributory pensions which is not the case (with very few exceptions) in the private sector. Dr. N.M. Perera, as finance minister in Mrs. Bandaranaike’s United Front government of 1970 tried, without success, to withdraw the pension benefits from new entrants to the public service. He sensibly proposed that they be paid a retirement benefit like what is offered by the EPF to private sector employees with contributions from both employer and employee. The failure of this effort has left a ticking time bomb on the taxpayer’s lap to this day.
At a post-budget press conference following freeing public sector salaries from income tax, then Finance Minister De Mel was asked whether parliamentary emoluments too would be similarly exempted. He ducked the question saying “that hasn’t been decided yet.” Of course the benefit was extended to MPs too. Cabinet Spokesman Bandula Gunawardene told a post-cabinet news briefing a few days ago said that the IMF wanted all those earning Rs. 45,000 a month to be made liable to income tax. The government tried its best to push it to a monthly Rs. 150,000 and finally settled at Rs. 100,000. There were those who didn’t believe the minister on the premise that an institution like the IMF would not have got into micro details but would have broadly prescribed a percentage of GDP that must be gathered as tax revenue. However it wasn’t long before the president himself confirmed Gunawardene’s claim.
There’s no avoiding the reality that Sri Lanka’s income tax base is far too narrow and needs to be widened substantially. This would mean that people who have never paid income tax would caught up in the tax net and would deeply resent being compelled to pay. This is particularly so in the context of the value of money reducing sharply, most so in recent months. The country is also saddled with an Inland Revenue Department entrenched in a tradition of harassing already squeezed lemons to increase tax collection in a society where evasion is widely prevalent, often among professionals who should know better. The government must also be cognizant of the untaxed, lavish non-cash benefits of politicians deeply resented by the people. However that be, whether the government will be allowed to implement the announced scheme or be compelled to backpedal remains to be seen.
Saturday 8th June, 2024
It was with shock and dismay that we received the news about death threats to COPF (Committee on Public Finance) Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva over the ongoing parliamentary probe into the on-arrival visa scam. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, in Parliament, that he was facing death threats and intimidation, and it was incumbent upon Parliament to ensure his safety. He stopped short of naming names, but revealed that some ruling party MPs were among those who had ganged up against him. The Speaker only said there had been no complaint, and he would look into the matter.
The SLPP-UNP government has been doing everything in its power to have all parliamentary committees under its thumb. The COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises), which once helped restore public faith in the legislature by exposing state sector corruption, has now become a mere appendage of the incumbent regime, thanks to the appointment of SLPP MP Rohitha Abeygunawardena as its Chairman. The SLPP-UNP combine also tried to oust COPF Chairman Dr. de Silva, but in vain. However, it knows more than one way to shoe a horse.
The COPF, under Dr. de Silva’s chairmanship, has been a thorn in the side of the government, which is struggling to cover up numerous corrupt deals. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Parliament that he found it extremely difficult to function as the COPF head due to severe resource constraints his committee was facing; he himself had to pay the salaries of some of his staff members besides burning the midnight oil.
The sheer workload he had to cope with as the COPF chief had taken its toll on his health, he said, informing the Speaker that he was at the end of his tether, and at times thought of resigning from the COPF. This is exactly what the government wants him to do; resource squeezes and threats are aimed at making him quit.
On 26 May, Dr. de Silva revealed, in an ‘X’ post, that the COPF had uncovered some vital information about the visa scam and it would reveal everything after its final meeting on the issue; the COPF was committed to exposing the truth behind the controversial tender, he added. In an editorial comment on 27 May, we warned him.
While thanking him for his bold stand, we pointed out that by making such a statement, he had thrown caution to the wind, and become a marked target, with the government making an all-out effort to delay the COPF investigation lest the truth should come out much to the detriment of its interests in this election year. Unfortunately, what was feared has come about; Dr. de Silva is complaining of death threats and government moves to strangulate the COPF financially to derail its investigations.
Dr. de Silva’s predicament exemplifies the fate that befalls the few good men and women in Parliament. It is hoped that all those who seek an end to the state sector corruption will rally behind Dr. de Silva, and bring pressure to bear on the government to ensure his safety. Let Dr. de Silva be urged to reveal the names of those who have issued threats, veiled or otherwise, to him and are trying to scuttle the COPF probes.
Friday 7th June, 2024
The SLPP-UNP government is going hell for leather to make bad laws as if there were no tomorrow. It is abusing its parliamentary majority, which has been retained with the help of some crossovers, for that purpose. The Opposition, the media and trade unions are up in arms, and understandably so. The incumbent regime is a dead man walking; it is so desperate that it is capable of anything. Hence the need for it to be restrained.
The Electricity (Amendment) Bill (EAB) plunged Parliament into turmoil yesterday, but the government secured its passage. The Supreme Court (SC) determined the entire EAB inconsistent with the Constitution and recommended changes thereto. After unveiling the Bill, sometime ago, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera hailed it as an excellent piece of legislation aimed at straightening up the power sector to serve the public interest better.
The SC determination left him with egg on his face. He reminded us of the proverbial curate who, while eating a stale egg, assured his host, a Bishop, that parts of it were excellent. Wijesekera’s egg, as it were, made Parliament stink yesterday, but he sought to please his masters by praising it as a silver bullet.
EAB should have been discarded and a new one drafted in consultation with all stakeholders. But the government is apparently driven by an ulterior motive; its aim is not to serve Sri Lanka’s interests but to look after those of some moneybags.
It is not uncommon for Bills to contain some flaws, which are rectified either before or during the committee stage. But there is something terribly wrong with draft Bills that are full of sections inconsistent with the Constitution. The drafters of EAB have demonstrated their sheer ignorance of the supreme law, and that they are not equal to the task of drafting Bills. If they had read the Constitution at least perfunctorily, they would not have drafted such a bad law.
Ignorant and incompetent, they do not deserve to be paid with public funds and must be sent back to law school. They must be summoned before Parliament and questioned on their serious lapses, which have caused public faith in the national legislature to diminish.
Curiously, the MPs who demand that judges, doctors, Central Bankers, and other public officials be summoned before Parliament have taken badly drafted Bills for granted. The power sector trade unions yesterday alleged that EAB was of Indian origin and geared towards furthering the interests of Adani Group at the expense of Sri Lanka.
Most critics of EAB are agreeable in principle to the need for power sector reforms; the Ceylon Electricity Board should be given a radical shake-up, and transformed into a modern organisation capable of providing a better service at a lower cost. They only asked the government to tread cautiously, consulting all stakeholders and taking action to ensure that the country’s interests prevailed over everything else. But the government was in a mighty hurry to steamroller the Bill through Parliament, making the Opposition ask whether it was doing so at the behest of some external forces involved in controversial power generation deals here.
What is passed by the current Parliament can be either amended or abolished by a future parliament in a constitutionally prescribed manner. But that does not mean that a government is free to pass bad laws, making the country enter into long-term agreements with powerful nations and their investors. It looks as if the SLPP-UNP regime did not care two hoots about the consequences of its actions.
Thursday 6th June, 2024
The outcome of India’s parliamentary election (2024) has led to a ‘perspective ambiguity’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost no time in declaring victory for the BJP-led NDA alliance, which secured 293 seats in the 543-member Parliament, but he must be a worried man. The BJP is short of 32 seats to form a government under its own steam; it has lost 63 seats or about 20% of its parliamentary strength. It had 303 seats in the previous Parliament, and that number has dropped to 240.
Modi has become the second Indian Prime Minister to win a third term. The first PM to do so was Jawaharlal Nehru. But Nehru won an outright majority in Parliament in 1962; Modi has had to depend on smaller parties in his alliance to retain his hold on power. Modi must be reeling from a sharp drop in his victory margin in his own constituency, Varanasi; it has decreased to 152,000 from 480,000 in 2019 whereas Modi’s bete noire, Rahul Gandhi, won Raebareli by a staggering 390,000 votes.
Modi, who reigned supreme with 303 seats in the previous Parliament, is now dependent on parties such as Nitish Kumar’s JD-U and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP to form a government. He has had to lead an alliance of strange bedfellows. Both Kumar and Naidu were bitter critics of Modi. Kumar helped form the oppositional alliance, the INDIA bloc, before switching his allegiance to PM Modi. Naidu also closed ranks with the BJP in the run-up to the election. These politicians have been described as extremely ambitious and highly unpredictable, and whether Modi will be able to manage them and consolidate his grip on the NDA alliance remains to be seen. They will demand plum ministerial posts in return for their support. The TDP is said to be eyeing Transport and Health portfolios! That is the name of the game in coalition politics, where it is not uncommon for the tail to wag the dog, so to speak. These two political leaders are however not the only problem Modi will have to contend with. The next five years will feel like an eternity for PM Modi.
Nothing would have been more shocking for the BJP than its defeat in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad constituency, where the Ram Mandir has been built. Modi may have thought he would be able to win the Lok Sabha election hands down after the consecration of that temple, which became a centrepiece of the BJP’s election campaign. The BJP lost that seat to the Samajwadi Party! Modi must be disappointed that the Ram Mandir hype failed to trigger a massive wave of support for his party. This particular defeat signifies a massive setback for the BJP’s ethno-religious agenda.
Modi’s divisive election campaign failed to yield the desired result. The BJP’s failure to secure an outright majority could be attributed to a host of factors, some of them being the suppression of the Opposition, the arrogance of power, chronic unemployment, and the rising cost of living. The BJP also did not care to reimage itself in a positive light to attract the youth.
Modi will hereafter see the Congress-led INDIA bloc with 223 seats, in his rearview mirror. The Congress (99 seats) and its allies have eaten into the BJP support base considerably, but they have a long way to go before being able to capture power.
The bumpy ride ahead for the BJP-led coalition government to be formed may improve the INDIA bloc’s chances of bettering their electoral performance and turning the tables on the BJP and its allies in time to come. Modi will have a lot to worry about in his third term.
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