{"id":137994,"date":"2023-10-31T16:36:38","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T23:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=137994"},"modified":"2023-10-31T16:36:38","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T23:36:38","slug":"sri-lanka-approves-vat-hike-to-18-in-push-for-imf-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2023\/10\/31\/sri-lanka-approves-vat-hike-to-18-in-push-for-imf-targets\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka approves VAT hike to 18% in push for IMF targets"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Nikkei Asia<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>COLOMBO\u00a0(Reuters) &#8212;\u00a0Sri\u00a0Lanka&#8217;s cabinet approved a hike in Value Added Tax (VAT) up to 18% from the current 15% with effect from Jan. 1, 2024, said Transport Minister Bandula Gunawardana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>State tax revenue of the first nine months of 2023 rose 51% as compared to the same period last year but tax collection targets agreed with the International Monetary Fund have not yet been accomplished, the cabinet said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new tax proposals will go into effect from 2024, including the imposition of taxes on all goods and services to which VAT is not yet applicable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Public revenue increased to 1.7 trillion rupees ($5.19 billion) in the first nine months when compared to last year but this amount is barely sufficient to pay public sector salaries, meet welfare payments and other recurrent expenditure,&#8221; Gunawardana, who is the cabinet spokesman, told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We know the public is struggling, so even though we are very reluctant to we have no choice but to increase taxes,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additional taxes are likely to be introduced in the budget, which will be presented to parliament in mid-November, said Gunawardana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Nikkei Asia COLOMBO\u00a0(Reuters) &#8212;\u00a0Sri\u00a0Lanka&#8217;s cabinet approved a hike in Value Added Tax (VAT) up to 18% from the current 15% with effect from Jan. 1, 2024, said Transport Minister Bandula Gunawardana. State tax revenue of the first nine months of 2023 rose 51% as compared to the same period last year but tax collection [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}