Human Rights Watch slams SL's 'ruinous' tax policies

Charges tax policies fuelled crisis and gutted education funding. Says decades of tax giveaways left State starved of revenue, deepened inequality. Urges Govt. to eliminate corporate exemptions, fund education at 4-6% of GDP

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HUMAN Rights Watch (HRW) yesterday said Sri Lanka's ruinous tax policies played a central role in the country's 2022 economic collapse and continue to deprive citizens of essential public services, calling on the Government of President Anura Kumara Disanayake to overhaul a system that "favours companies and wealthy people while failing to deliver adequate revenues.

In its 101-page report, "Tax Giveaways, Struggling Schools: How Low Taxes Drove Sri Lanka's Economic Crisis and Squandered its Education Lead," HRW said that successive Governments had pursued revenue-starving policies that weakened the State and left the country heavily dependent on regressive consumption taxes.

"For decades, Sri Lanka has been hostage to economic policies that starve its Government of revenue and reflect a myopic focus on GDP growth," said HRW Senior Economic Justice Researcher Sarah Saadoun.