Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-04-04

Providing of Income Tax relief for the inducement of Investor

- The Policy of the Government is to broaden the income tax base by removing excessive tax incentives and thereby increase the Government revenue. In future, income tax incentives are proposed to be streamlined and will solely be based on the investments made on the capital assets and employment generation and to achieve this purpose the necessary provision will be incorporated in the new Inland Revenue Act, now being drafted. Accordingly, the proposal made by Hon. Ravi Karunanayake, the Minister of Finance, to instruct the Legal Draftsman to incorporate in the proposed Inland Revenue Tax Act the amendments namely the Investment Incentive Scheme proposed under Schedule‑ii and the incentives proposed under Schedule iv to provide for the investments to be made by the small scale and medium scale investors during the period 2017-2019, was approved by the Cabinet.