Sri Lanka's proposed New Inland Revenue Act will stop ministers from being able to grant discretionary tax concessions, the country's finance minister was quoted by LBO as saying.
The move is aimed at ensuring the system of tax concessions is not subject to abuse.
Under the new Act, there will be 8 concessionary loan schemes for specific workers, including small and medium scale industrialists, farmers, journalists and entrepreneurs.
Criticising claims made by the MP Bandula Gunawardena that the new Act seeks to favour foreigners, the finance minister, Mangala Samaraweera said, "he seems to have conveniently forgotten the various tax holidays and exemptions given by the ministers of the previous regimes to their cronies and nepotists making use of the provisions of the Strategic Development Act."
"The new act has a transparent policy of tax concessions that puts an end to the era of going behind politicians and their henchmen by bribing them for such concessions," he added.