By Saman Indrajith

The government yesterday decided to put off the Social Security Contribution Bill when the JVP and the SJB, in Parliament opposed it vehemently.

The Social Security Contribution Levy Bill had been listed for the second reading debate, and Parliament sources said that the party leaders had agreed to pass the Bill with several other regulations, without debate to save time for another debate, listed for the day, on current nutritional problems of children and women.

When the Leader of the House and Education Minister got up to present the Bill for the approval of the House, JVP leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, said that the Bill would place an additional tax burden on people. “The government keeps on levying taxes on people. The government’s excuse is that it does not have money. There is a financial crisis. Then it should first take action against former Central Bank Governor and ex-Finance Minister Basil Rajapaks for bankrupting the country. What action are you going to take against them?” Dissanayake queried.

The JVP leader said that the Bill envisaged introducing a social security tax. “The government keeps shifting the burden on to people. It increased the VAT from 8 percent to 12 percent and then most recently to 15 percent. Prices of all essential commodities including medicines, have gone up. There is a new tax called social security tax of 2.5 percent on the turnover. This turnover tax is on importation, production, selling and services. This tax is applicable to all fields of the economy. One who owns an industry, covering all these aspects, will have to pay 2.5 percent in importing, another 2.5 percent for 85 percent of the production and this tax will be levied again in distribution and selling. Thus, this tax is like a compound tax. With 15 percent VAT, this new addition will result in an increase of tax cost to around 20 percent. People are in great difficulty owing to the existing taxes. This is very unfair and unjust. No action has been taken against those who caused this crisis.”

“We are against this Bill,” Dissanayake said.

SJB MP and Chairman of the Public Finance Committee Dr. Harsha de Silva also opposed the the Bill.

He said it was not proper to enact a Bill without presenting a review of it.

He said that the Public Finance Committee did not approve any Bill without reviewing it. “However, we had to approve the Social Security Contribution Bill as we were informed that it was urgent.”

MP de Silva said that the Bill required some amendments and it could not be approved without perusal.

He said that the amendments to the Bill had been proposed without the approval of the committee.

“In other countries, they have either VAT or Turnover tax. You cannot have both. An accounting firm predicted that this 2.5 percent could go up to seven percent in the process. I agree with MP Dissanayake. This is an unfair tax.”

Dr. De Silva said the property sales business had been taken out of the list of enterprises to be taxed by the social security tax. “That is to help the rich. You are taxing the poor while giving exemptions to the rich. This is an unjust act,” he said.

Responding to the opposition MPs, Leader of the House Minister Susil Premajayantha proposed the postponement of the vote on the Social Security Contribution Bill to Thursday.