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| Sunday, 14 April 2002 |
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Revenue, tariff advisory councils formed The Ministry of Finance has appointed a Revenue Management Advisory Council and a Tariff Advisory Council, a news release from the Ministry said. According to the 2002 Budget speech, the Government will identify and remove excessive administrative regulations and procedures that hinder the import and export trade, industrial development and complicate the fiscal system. The areas of customs, tariff, tax and excise administration had been identified in the budget for deregulation. It had also stated that a Revenue Authority comprising public and private sector personnel will be established to consolidate the Department of Inland Revenue, Excise and Customs. The Customs Ordinance is also to be repealed and replaced and a Tariff Commission is to be established. The Revenue Management Advisory Council has been formed, among other tasks, to examine the prevailing regulations, procedures and requirements of documentation in the Department of Customs to simplify and expedite the inward and outward clearance of goods; examine the prevailing procedures in the making of tax returns and assessments to simplify the system and reduce documentation required to be submitted by taxpayers; advise on measures for better coordination between the Departments of Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise; advise on the rationalisation of prevailing tax exemptions and tax holidays and on measures to be adopted at metropolitan and regional offices of the Inland Revenue Department to prevent tax evasion; and examine and advise on the administrative and legislative steps necessary for the amalgamation of the Departments of Inland Revenue, Excise and Customs into a single revenue authority and prepare in conjunction with the legal draftsman a draft of the proposed Revenue Authority Law. The functions of the Tariff Advisory Council include identifying the anomalies and distortions in the current tariff structure; the impact of Value Added Tax, excise duties and cess levies on the import and export trade and tariff policy; the effect of bilateral and multilateral trade and tariff agreements on Sri Lanka's trade and tariff policies; and the implications of SAPTA arrangements and preferential tariff arrangements in regional trade among SAARC countries. The Revenue Management Advisory Council comprises V. Kailasapillai, Lakshman Perera, Nihal Fonseka, Ranel Wijesinghe, Rohan Perera, Mervyn Weerasooriya and N.R. Gajendran. The Tariff Advisory Council comprises K. Shanmugalingam, Ranjith Fernando, M.A.R.C. Cooray, Dr N. Ranaweera, Thiru Neelakandan, Dr P.N. Weerasinghe, Henry Pieris, Thilak de Zoysa, Nihal Jinasena and Macky Hashim. |
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