The present government has already reduced taxes aiming to ease the burden of the masses, he said.
Speaking at a media briefing held at the Sri Lanka People’s Front party headquarters at Nelum Mawatha, Colombo yesterday, Withanage said that the post-COVID crisis has been accompanied by a serious global economic crisis. All the powerful nations of the world are under great pressure, both economically and socially. The energy crisis in particular has emerged in earnest. In every country, the prices of essential commodities have skyrocketed. Recent economic analyses show that even stable countries are still lagging behind in COVID mitigation. Some of them have not been able to achieve the vaccination targets.
“Many of the countries we claim to be developed have not returned to normal due to the current situation. Both the production process and the transport process have been badly affected. They are also reducing the number of hours people work. Also, the supply of raw materials has become a serious crisis. Air and shipping cargo is declining sharply. In this situation, we can see a huge increase in the prices of essential commodities around the world,” he added.
“However he added that today there is severe uneasiness among the people due to the impact on our country as well. Despite the corona pandemic, the government was able to bring some relief to the people by reducing taxes. Even if the government of good governance implements the policy of levying large amounts of taxes, the average tax expenditure per citizen would be approximately 33% plus one person’s expenses.The present government is facing a difficult task in balancing this,” he further said.