COLOMBO: Sri Lanka on Saturday raised excise duties, which should increase state revenue by 20 billion rupees ($141.69 million), as the government struggles to reach an ambitious budget deficit goal for this year.
Spending by President Maithripala Sirisena’s coalition government has increased by around 87 billion rupees.
However, it has promised to reduce the budget deficit to 4.4 percent of the gross domestic product this year, compared with a 4.6 percent estimate by the previous government. The 2014 budget deficit was 6.0 percent of GDP, missing a 5.0 percent target.
The government has yet to collect around 60 billion rupees of potential tax revenue, mainly from a retrospective corporate tax on companies with more than 2 billion rupees of profit in the last financial year. These revenue bills have been presented to parliament have not yet been voted on.
