Sri Lanka's proposed Inland Revenue bill woudl be presented to Parliament on August 25th, the finance minister, Mangala Samaraweera was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying on Monday.
The announcement follows a similar announcement last week, however the bill was not presented.
The bill, which has been strongly backed by the International Monetary Fund, had to be amended after the Supreme Court said parts of it violated the country's constitution.
The former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday urged his party members of the SLFP to vote against the new bill.
“The tax exemption granted to all places of worship has been dropped in the proposed law and Item 6 of the First Schedule has fixed the tax for such charitable institutions at 14%," he said in a statement.
"According to the Third and Fifth Schedules, places of worship and charitable institutions will be eligible for a tax concession only if the money is used to provide care to children, the elderly or the disabled. The incomes of some places of worship are supervised by the government and such institutions will be taxed to the maximum whereas other places of worship not supervised by the government will be able to escape the tax net. Such discriminatory practices will give rise to social tensions."
"Furthermore, the existing 2006 Inland Revenue Act provides concessions through Chapter III on tax exemptions to various fields deemed worthy of preservation such as local handicraft industries, film and drama producers etc. This Chapter also has concessions for various economic activities such as new undertakings in pharmaceuticals, renewable energy, production for import substitution etc. There are over 200 such exemptions in the present law. All those concessions are to be removed by the proposed new law."
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