| schema:text
| - Social media posts claiming that a new special tax has been imposed for 5 types of goods are false!
Subscribe to our WhatsApp Channel
The new NPP government's decisions have received mixed public reactions. At the same time, many misleading social media posts have been made about them. Let's look at one such instance of viral social media posts which talked about a purported new levy imposed by the government on certain food categories.
Social Media Posts
Social media notes are spreading that a special merchandise tax of 400 rupees has been imposed on imported Dhal and Salmon.
Some media reports have also reported this in a misleading way.
We decided to investigate the matter.
Fact Check
We first looked at the gazette notices issued recently in this regard. There, we saw that a tax was imposed under gazette notification 2406/2. A few days ago, the President imposed these special commodity taxes for several goods in accordance with the second section of the Special Commodity Tax Act No. 48 of 2007.
However, only a tax of 25 cents per kilogram has been imposed on Dhal. Also, accordingly, frozen fish per 1kg is Rs. 400 or 10%, whichever is higher, and Maldive fish and its substitutes are taxed at Rs. 302. Apart from this, Rs. 200 has been levied as a special commodity tax on one kilogram of mangosteen and dried mangosteen, and a tax of Rs. 175 has been imposed on Kiwi fat per kilogram.
These taxes have been imposed from October 14th to December 31st. The gazette announcement can be read here.
A tax renewal was imposed a year ago!
However, upon further investigation, it was found that this is not a new tax but rather an extension of a gazette notice issued a year ago extending its effective period due to the expiry of the previous notice, imposed under the Special Commodity Levy Act No. 48 of 2007. You can access the Gazette notification 2353/77 issued a year ago from here.
Accordingly, it is clear that no new tax has been imposed, and the 25 cents tax imposed in Dhal and Rs. 400 for frozen fish, etc., are misleading.
As indicated in the gazette announcement that was presented during the reign of former President Mr Ranil Wickramasinghe, it is clear that this gazette announcement has been in effect for the past year, with effect from October 14th 2023, and the new government has extended its effective period till end of.
We also inquired about this from the Ministry of Finance, which has issued an official announcement about the false claims exchanged above.
The announcement can be reached here.
Previously, on several occasions, when the announcements related to the existing tax impositions expired, the announcement of their future implementations was misleadingly reported in the media as a new tax imposition.
In that way, below are some of the investigations we conducted on those occasions regarding the misleading notes published by the previous governments.
Fact Check – A misleading statement about a new tax on certain food items in Sri Lanka!
Fact Check – Did the new finance minister impose a new tax on some food items?
Join us to learn more about our investigative fact findings.
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Google News | TikTok
Conclusion:
Accordingly, it is clear that no new tax has been imposed, and this is not a new tax but a gazette notice issued to extend its effective period due to the expiry of a gazetted track imposed under the Special Commodity Act No. 48 of 2007 a year ago.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)