The budget for the year 2021 featured a number of missing estimates for some of its proposals.
In fact, 36 revenue proposals and 32 expenditure proposals had no estimated figures in the 2021 Budget in comparison to 11 revenue proposals and 3 expenditure proposals in the 2019 Budget.
A few key examples are as follows:
Revenue Proposals
- ‘Introduction of an online – managed single Special Goods and Service Tax in place of the various goods and service taxes and levies, imposed under multiple laws and institutions on alcohol, cigarettes, Telecommunications, betting and gaming and vehicles, which accounts for 50 percent of the income from taxes and levies’
- ‘To classify all imports other than the above (raw materials not available in the country, machineries and equipment with modern technology), under three categories of 0, 10 and 15 percent’
Expenditure Proposals
- ‘I further propose to expand the railway network in Colombo and suburban areas’
- ‘I propose to pay Rs. 2 per dollar above the normal exchange rate for the foreign exchange remittances sent by foreign workers to banks in Sri Lanka’
- ‘A guaranteed price will be provided to encourage our farmers to cultivate Rice, Maize, Kurrakkan, Sesame and black gram. This is a blessing also for the cultivation of vegetables, fruits and coconuts and other plantation crops’
Refer the Public Report on Budget 2021 (http://publicfinance.lk/2020/12/10/public-report-on-the-2021-budget/) to find details on all proposals that did not have an estimation.
