Economic analysts were surprised by President Ranil Wickramasinghe’s proposal as the Finance Minister to impose a tax of 2 rupees on beedi without imposing a tax on cigarettes, which can generate an income of 40 billion rupees per year.
They point out that the government is losing 40 billion dollars in income per year from cigarettes alone due to not properly taxing them. ot
Mr. Pubudu Sumanasekara, the executive director of the Alcohol and Drug Information Center, revealed the other day that despite the increase in the price of cigarettes in the budget, the country is losing about 40 billion rupees in tax revenue per year due to the deals made by certain individuals with cigarette companies.
He had pointed out that if taxes were properly imposed on cigarettes, huge projects like Moragahakanda could have been done without borrowing from China.
Also, JVP leader Mr. Anura Kumara Dissanayake recently made a special revelation in Parliament about how the government authorities supported the cigarette scam.
Mr. Dissanayake said that businessman D.S. Muditha Gunasekara of Gunasekara Company has applied for the purchase of 31500 lakh rupees from Katuwana Shaka of the Bank of Ceylon, and since the price of cigarettes is going to rise in the budget, the stock of cigarettes has been pledged as collateral and requested for this loan amount.
He pointed out that someone has given out information about cigarette tax in this way, and some people have worked to earn crores and billions of money through it.
In addition to this, Dr. Nishan de Mel had also pointed out that the price of cigarettes should be increased according to a price formula, and unless that is the case, it is impossible to prevent a handful of people from getting unlimited profits.
He says that the government can find large tax revenue by imposing taxes on cigarettes properly.
However, in this year’s budget too, it is a special event that taxes are not imposed on cigarettes but only on beedi.
