New IR Act to reduce ad hoc tax exemptions

Inland Revenue Department plans to reduce the number of ad hoc tax exemptions with the introduction of the new Inland Revenue Act, next year.

Inland Revenue Department Commissioner General Ivan Dissanayake, speaking at a recently concluded post-budget seminar in Colombo, noted that the introduction of Revenue Administration Management Information System (RAMIS) too will revolutionise the tax culture in Sri Lanka and a number of key government institutions are to be connected with this system in the near future.

RAMIS, to be implemented next year, is expected to support a number of web services including tax payment, tax collections, cancellations, returns, etc. Dissanayake however noted that ICT systems at several agencies are not connected to the RAMIS system because these institutions don’t have software packages compatible with the packages used by the Inland Revenue Department to implement the system as soon as possible.

However, issues related to ICT systems will be sorted out soon with the assistance of ICT agencies which come under the management of the government.

In addition, the department is currently in the process of widening the number of tax files to include the informal sector such tuition teachers, Dissanayake said.