Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana, the Speaker of Parliament, has given his approval to critical financial legislation, including the Appropriation Bill for the year 2024, the Value Added Tax (Amendment), and Finance Bills, recently passed in Parliament.
The national budget for the upcoming fiscal year was crafted against the backdrop of an unprecedented economic downturn, marked as the most significant in the recorded history of our nation.
This year’s budget outlines substantial increases in funding across various sectors, including government employee salaries, retirement benefits, poverty alleviation programs like Aswasuma, education, healthcare, and road infrastructure development.
Among the notable provisions, government employees are slated to receive a 10,000 rupee increment in their living allowance from January 1st, 2024. While the policy goes into effect in January, the disbursement of the adjusted amount is scheduled to commence in April.
To address the period from January to April, arrears owed to government employees will be distributed in installments starting from October of the following year.
Currently operating within the framework of the International Monetary Fund’s credit facility, the nation is bound by stringent economic policies.
Despite the diverse expenditure propositions in this year’s budget, the central challenge lies in securing sufficient state revenue, an issue emphasized in the International Monetary Fund’s staff report released on December 12th alongside the second tranche disbursement.
“Even with revenue measures adopted so far, government revenue remains substantially lower than in other emerging market and middle-income countries.”
The government’s primary revenue-generation strategy revolves around a proposed hike in the Value Added Tax (VAT) rate, scheduled to escalate from 15% to 18% effective January 1st.
Moreover, nearly 100 previously exempted goods and services are expected to be brought under the VAT framework as part of the proposed reforms.
