The Hon. Ravi Karunanayake
Raised concerns that high taxes on the gem industry, including 30 per cent corporate tax and 18 per cent VAT, discourage registration and declaration of domestic earnings. He urged the Minister to make the system more user-friendly, restore conditions to retain processing of Sri Lankan gems locally, and consider duty-free facilities or per-carat relief to increase revenue and help achieve the USD 2 billion export target.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Minister, my concern is the overall tax burden on the industry — 30 per cent corporate tax and 18 per cent VAT. Because of this, people avoid declaring domestic earnings; they carry stones in their pockets and take them out. How will you make the system user‑friendly? Our reputation has suffered over time; part of our blue sapphires go to Thailand for heat treatment; garnet goes to Madagascar, Hong Kong, and Myanmar. I urge you to restore proper conditions. With a 30 per cent tax and VAT, no one registers. Please correct this. Also consider a duty‑free facility with a per‑carat relief; that would bring far more revenue. With current taxes, you will not reach your USD 2 billion target.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Friday, 24 October 2025 ·No. 22644 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
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/lk/speeches/28819
Cite as: The Hon. Ravi Karunanayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 24 October 2025. No. 22644. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/28819