These actually increased:
Excise duty
Electric vehicle excise
Corporate income tax
Capital gains tax
AFAIK:
Vehicle Import Duty is a tariff.
Bank deposit Withholding Tax is an advance income tax. You had to anyway pay the full amount.
Export Services Tax is a scheduled removal of a prior exemption, not a rate increase. I think even the current rate is a concessional rate.
Vehicle SSCL is an extension of an existing levy to imports.
Professional Withholding Tax is an advance income tax.
Customs Import Duties are tariffs.
Vehicle Import Surcharge is a tariff.
Digital Services VAT is a new application of VAT to previously (unfairly) untaxed services.
Correct if I'm wrong.
⭕ Since September 2024, the only effective tax reduction has been the increase in the annual income tax-free threshold from Rs. 1.2 million to Rs. 1.8 million, providing a maximum monthly tax saving of Rs. 20,500 per taxpayer. Almost all other taxes remained unchanged or increased.
Here is the list in chronological order:
⭕ Excise Duty (January 2025): Increased by ~6% on liquor, cigarettes, tobacco, sweetened beverages and motor vehicles.
⭕ Electric Vehicle Tax (February 2025): Excise duty rates on electric vehicles were doubled, representing a 100% increase.
⭕ Vehicle Import Duty (February 2025): The previous Customs duty exemption was removed, introducing a 20% import duty. A further 50% surcharge increased the effective duty to 30%.
⭕ Withholding Tax (April 2025): Tax deducted from bank deposit interest doubled from 5% to 10%. Eligible low-income depositors can obtain relief through self-declarations.
⭕ Corporate Income Tax (April 2025): Increased from 40% to 45% for businesses involved in liquor, tobacco, betting and gaming.
⭕ Export Services Tax (April 2025): Previously exempt income from qualifying service exports and foreign sources became subject to income tax at a maximum rate of 15%.
⭕ Vehicle SSCL (May 2026): The 2.5% Social Security Contribution Levy was extended to vehicle imports, changing the stage and taxable base of the levy.
⭕ Capital Gains Tax (June 2026): Increased from 10% to 15% for individuals and partnerships, and from 10% to 30% for trusts, unit trusts, mutual funds and NGOs.
⭕ Professional Withholding Tax (June 2026): The 5% withholding tax was extended to additional categories of professionals, including photographers, artists, IT specialists and social media specialists, on qualifying payments exceeding Rs. 100,000 per month.
⭕ Customs Import Duties (April 2026): The tariff structure was revised from 0%, 15% and 20% to 0%, 10%, 20% and 30%, introducing a higher 30% band for selected imports while reducing certain other duties.
⭕ Vehicle Import Surcharge (May 2026): A 50% surcharge on the existing 30% Customs import duty increased the effective rate to 45% for applicable vehicles. The measure was subsequently extended until 31 December 2026.
⭕ Digital Services VAT (July 2026): Qualifying digital services supplied by non-resident providers were brought within the 18% VAT framework. However, practical implementation remains incomplete.
#srilanka
Interesting nitter.gq/NewsWireLK/status/2116… Keerthi Thennakoon says something similar to numbers.lk
Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon lists 12 tax revisions under new Government ift.tt/tY3Can1
hexmint ✌️ retweeted
This is the reality!
NPP is taking the hit, but the public doesn't see the struggle.
They just want cheap gas and cheap oil. How is that possible? Tell them what you've been doing... @anuradisanayake @BimalRathnayake
Halloween came and went early
October in a nutshell:
- PHP got hacked
- Railway got hacked
- OpenCode got hacked
- Binance got hacked
- Polymarket got hacked
- GitHub Actions got hacked
- SoftBank got hacked
- Cursor marketplace got hacked
- Coinbase vendor got hacked
- Fireworks AI got hacked
- LiteLLM got hacked
- Capcom got hacked
- npm packages got hacked
- TiDB Cloud got hacked
- Warp's vendor got hacked
happy cybersecurity awareness month
to respect the elephant, I decided to change my password to "car1_3x_a"
Sajith launches initiative to build life-sized statue of tusker Kawantissa ift.tt/39bxTlk
hexmint ✌️ retweeted
Lal Wijenayake, a member of the National People’s Power (NPP) Executive Council and a former Opposition Leader of the Central Provincial Council, has passed away.
A longstanding figure in Sri Lanka’s left-wing politics, he remained politically active until his final days and recently opposed the 22nd Amendment and proposed anti-terrorism legislation.
Funeral arrangements will be announced later.
Plus users ignored. If you think I will pay more, you are mistaken. I'll just cancel and switch to a Chinese model. In fact, I bought opencode go, and maybe will buy Claude for personal use (apart from work, which I already have).
Day 25/
We are doubling all usage limits for all Pro 100/200/500 tiers and Business Premium, effective today.
We heard your kind feedback and won’t be reducing usage limits for Pro 200, so your Work and Codex usage will stay the same. We’re also going to continue offering extended limits for dots for now, and usage of your dot will still continue to be separate from your default usage.
And we'll of course also keep shipping better models and other efficiency improvements that increase your effective usage over time.
වූෆි මගේ බලු පැටියා
Sri Lanka’s prisons hold nearly 40,000 inmates despite capacity for 11,000: BASL President
Full Story: newswire.lk/tswc
























