COPF slams Treasury for delaying imposition of VAT on foreign digital and software providers

The Committee on Public Finance (COPF) told officials from the Ministry of Finance that the state was suffering a substantial revenue loss due to a delay in imposing VAT on foreign digital and software providers.

COPF Chairman Harsha de Silva, MP, said that had also created an unequal playing field for domestic digital and software providers.Even local travel booking agents were subject to VAT, while websites such as Booking.com had been exempted, the COPF said.

The Ministry officials said they were awaiting the introduction of a new law to impose VAT on foreign service providers.The COPF members said the officials had to put in place a mechanism to collect taxes and create an equal playing field until the new law was made.

The COPF also deliberated on the Social Security Contribution Levy (Amendment) Bill. The amendment to the Act, lowering the turnover threshold of registration for the Social Security Contribution Levy from Rs. 120 million to Rs. 60 million per annum, effective from 01 January 2024, had been approved by the Committee.

However, the chair raised concerns about the need for maintaining two separate tax structures.He suggested consolidating the taxes under the VAT, which would result in an average effective rate of 22 percent when combined with the Social Security Contribution Levy. In response, the Ministry of Finance said their objective was to meet revenue targets and that they intended to use that approach pending transition to a more streamlined tax system.

Furthermore, the COPF also queried the Officials about the progress of recovering the lost revenue resulting from the initial ‘sugar scam’, as highlighted in the report by the Auditor General. Officials contended that it should not be classified as a tax loss, but rather as tax foregone due to the reduction of the special commodity levy from Rs 50 to 25 cents. Despite that explanation, the Committee asked the officials to furnish data on certain companies that had disproportionately profited from the tax adjustment.

The COPF Chairman raised questions regarding the Government’s inability to recover the outstanding forgone tax, especially in light of substantial tax hikes such as those on PAYE and VAT affecting the average Sri Lankan. Officials said they had been able to reclaim only 30% of the improperly accrued tax through corporate tax, leaving the remaining 70% uncollectable within the existing tax framework. The COPF urged officials to explore options for retrieving the entire forgone tax revenue or propose new legislation to address such scenarios in the future and prevent their recurrence. While both the VAT (Amendment) bill and the Social Security Contribution Levy were endorsed by the Committee, the Chairman dissented, expressing the aforementioned concerns.