Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Finance has stated that he has not proposed to levy the surcharge tax proposed in the 2022 budget from the Employees Provident Fund or any other fund.
“In my budget speech presenting the 2022 budget, I made a one-time tax proposal on page 68 at 7.9. It was clearly stated that I propose to levy a 25% surcharge on individuals or companies earning taxable income of over Rs. 2000 million for the assessment year 2020-2021. It is expected to earn around Rs. 100 billion from this tax. This is what it says on page 68.
So clearly we were expecting 100 billion at that time. We identified 69 companies and individuals accordingly. When we calculate those 69 we currently get Rs. 105 billion.
At no point did we expect to include either the Employees Provident Fund or the Employment Trust Fund. There are such 11 funds but none of them will be included. Doing so would generate another Rs. 85 billion in revenue. We never estimated it.
However, the public was of the opinion that this surcharge belongs to the 11 Inland Revenue Act No. 24 of 2017 which was introduced by the previous government and these 11 funds as income taxpayers. We have to explain that in the Cabinet and state that all these 11 funds have been exempted from this tax. ”
The Minister of Finance stated this in a special statement issued to the media yesterday (14).
