ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said high-income professionals like doctors, lawyers, tuition masters and architects who are products of free education should pay their fair share of taxes.
Only 18% of Sri Lankans are paying direct taxes and 82% paying indirect taxes, he told a news conference.
“Today many doctors, lawyers, tuition masters, architects are products of free education, funded by the state, which is funded by tax payers,” Samaraweera.
Most doctors fall into the Rs 350,000 tax income bracket range where they have to pay 24% income tax, based on their declared income, he said.
“To ask to be put in the same bracket as someone earning Rs150,000 is very unfair,” Samaraweera said, referring to demands by doctors to reduce their income tax rates.
“Lawyers, tuition masters, architects, and doctors should pay the tax they are supposed to pay,” he said.
“If they can pay taxes on their income, we can give more subsidies.”
(COLOMBO, June 20, 2018)
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