I find this an outrageous statement – People in the Private Sector are still not paying enough tax to keep pace with the salary increments paid to state works.

Get a life. They are mutually exclusive and NOT related. Yes, the private businessmen in Sri Lanka pay a very low proportion of their income in taxes. It is very easy to find who, and collect taxes, as pointed out in numerous papers by the Central Bank, where a unique number is attached to a person, (NI is OK) to record all purchases and sales, to know who they are, and then see how their purchases of trips or product above a minimum value (say Rs100,000) are financed. The reason this is NOT done, is that the lawmakers are the biggest tax dodgers. Most of whom have even pocketed some of the funds received for their election campaigns.

As a separate issue, the huge cost of public sector pay and pensions will drag this economy down for the next 50 years, UNLESS some drastic action is taken immediately.

 http://www.economynext.com/Sri_Lanka_to_extract_more_taxes_from_people_to_pay_state_salaries_in_2016_budget-3-3547-1.html

The article says that in 2016, the salaries and perks of state workers could top Rs700B is such a preposterous figure, when much of it does not help the economy in ANY WAY.

The first exercise is to look at who is on that list, and why that person is paid that, even if it is a pension, and estimate whether the Country can afford that payment. Then the first step is to try and get some productivity out of that payment if it is wasted. This can be done by re training in fields that are desperately needed, such as the Mental Health Sector which is grossly underfunded and understaffed! 

A re allocation of resources in the State Sector as suggested in many of my blog entries will help the economy both grow, preserve our resources, natural and renewable, and reduce waste. On immediate need as I have mentioned before is using he Armed Forces to guard and preserve some of the 250,000 sights of archeological value, that are currently not only pen to the elements, they are also open to treasure hunters with new ground scanning technology.

So let us look at the most effective and fair means of raising revenue for the Govt. whilst at the same time trying to ensure that the money spent on public sector wages is used productively to assist the public in more ways than one where the word “Servant” of the State and Public is front and center!