Stern action against tax defaulting plantation companies

Shirley Wijesinghe

Stern legal action will be taken against tax defaulting plantation companies, Plantation Industries Minister D. M. Jayaratne said.

He said that there are 20 plantation companies under the management of Private sector and only nine companies had paid taxes with arrears. The rest are yet to pay their taxes.

Total taxes of Rs.242 million had to be paid to the Inland Revenue up to last April from all these 20 companies. That amount was reduced to Rs. 170.5 million after payments made by nine companies .

The Minister said that all outstanding taxes should be paid before June 30, 2009.

The Ministry will take steps to deduct the amounts of such taxes from respective tea broker companies from those who fail to pay the due taxes before the stipulated deadline.

Most of the tea companies in the country will run at a loss due to their inefficiency. The required amendments to the act will shortly be introduced to overcome these difficulties, the Minister further said.