Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-03-21

New Inland Revenue Act

- In terms of the Budget Proposal of 2016 action is being taken to introduce a New Inland Revenue Act, with a view to simplifying and modernizing the existing Inland Revenue Act. By the proposed new Act, it has been planned to broaden the income tax base by expanding the sources of income rules, to add new administrative powers to the Inland Revenue Department to enable it to enforce tax control activities efficiently while enhancing the tax payer protection instead of providing wide tax concessions, to address tax base erosion and combat tax avoidance to modernize tax control based on non-complex principles creating a more conducive tax structure and to implement the Capital Gains Tax. Accordingly, the proposal made by Hon. Ravi Karunanayake, the Minister of Finance to instruct the Legal Draftsman to draft the New Inland Revenue Act, based on the existing concept paper, was approved by the Cabinet.