President Anura Kumara Dissanayake says the Government expects to remove certain taxes through the 2027 Budget, acknowledging the tax burden the public is carrying and the pressure of rising costs.
Speaking at a public rally in Akuressa on Sunday, the President said the Government had concentrated on strengthening the economy, livelihoods, food security and opportunities for economic advancement, and that the task now was to turn that into something people could feel, the Daily Mirror reported.
He gave no list of which taxes, no rates and no dates.
“Even in developed countries, certain groups of people live on relief. Funds in the Treasury must be channeled to the village level as development and as relief as well.”
That framing — relief as a legitimate permanent category of spending rather than an emergency measure — is the argument the President is making for the pledge.
What was promised for next year
Beyond the tax removals, the rally produced a list of 2027 commitments:
- Communication towers — 1,000 to be built within three years, with funding allocated for 750 next year
- Education — reforms commencing for Grade Six next year
- Transport — the electric train project to commence next year
- Health — the President said he had instructed authorities to report on modern health methods and would allocate funds
- Fuel — concessions to blunt the October price revision
The Budget itself is due to be presented on 12 November.
Two figures in this report do not survive a check
The Daily Mirror’s account of the speech carries two rupee figures that cannot be right as printed, and they fail in opposite directions.
Capital expenditure. The report states that “Rs. 2 billion has been allocated for capital expenditure in next year’s Budget.” That is three orders of magnitude below what the same President has said repeatedly. In May he announced Rs. 2,000 billion — Rs. 2 trillion — for capital expenditure in 2027, calling it the largest such allocation in the country’s history; three outlets carried it. It is consistent with what Cabinet Spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa set out in June, putting 2026 capital expenditure at Rs. 1,350 billion. Rs. 2 billion would be a rounding error in a national budget.
The fuel subsidy already spent. The report quotes the President as saying: “We allocated Rs. 600 billion to provide fuel concessions in April, May, June and July.” Hiru News, reporting the same speech, gives the figure as Rs. 60 billion — a tenfold difference on one sentence from one platform.
Hiru’s version is the one that reconciles. The CPC confirmed in May that the Rs. 100-per-litre diesel and Rs. 20-per-litre petrol subsidies would run three months under a Rs. 57 billion allocation. A four-month diesel programme at Rs. 60 billion follows from that; Rs. 600 billion would be roughly a tenth of annual government revenue spent on four months of fuel discount. This newsroom’s report of the rally on Sunday used the Rs. 60 billion figure and the reconciliation still holds.
The pattern matters more than either number. A single report of a single speech contains a units slip in each direction — a thousandfold understatement on capital expenditure and a tenfold overstatement on the fuel subsidy. Treat rupee magnitudes in this account as unverified until the Budget is tabled on 12 November.
The fuel position changed the next day
On fuel, the President said global prices had risen and domestic prices “would have to be revised from October 1” under the pricing formula, but that the Government had decided to provide concessions to limit the impact.
A day later, Energy Minister Anura Karunathilaka went further: there would be no increase at the end-of-month revision at all. The President’s position at the rally was that prices must rise and a subsidy would soften the blow; his minister’s position on Monday was that they would not rise. Neither statement acknowledges the other.
Context
The pledge lands against a fiscal programme that has been built on the opposite proposition. Revenue mobilisation — raising the tax take as a share of GDP — has been the central commitment of Sri Lanka’s IMF-supported programme since 2023, and the Inland Revenue Department has spent 2026 reporting collections ahead of target. Removing taxes in 2027 is affordable only to the extent that overperformance holds.
Not reported
The Daily Mirror does not say which taxes are to be removed, whether the President was referring to income tax, VAT or import levies, what the revenue cost would be, or whether the removals have been agreed with the IMF. It does not give the cost of the 750 communication towers, the route or budget of the electric train project, or what the Grade Six reform contains.
