Rs. 2.3 b tax revenue to Excise Dept. outstanding: COPA

• Comm. Gen. of Excise and Dept. officials appear before COPA
• Says they are pursuing legal action against tax defaulters
• COPA Chairman directs action be taken to fill vacancies in Dept.
• Says security sticker on imported liquor bottles should also be placed on local products

Outstanding tax revenue due to the Excise Department for the period of five years ending December, 2019 stands at Rs. 2,376.2 million, the Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts (COPA) heard yesterday.

Of this amount, tax arrears amounted to Rs. 479.9 million while delay charges amounted to Rs. 1,896.3 million, Excise Department officials told the Committee.

Commissioner General of Excise A. Bodaragama and other officials informed the Committee that legal action has been taken to recover the arrears.

They said the Excise Department had conducted 224,737 raids during the last five years, out of which 53,848 raids were carried out in 2017, 49,278 raids in 2018 and 47,391 raids in 2019 and that legal action has been taken against those violating Excise laws.

COPA Chairman Prof. Tissa Vitharana drew attention to the fact that the relevant disciplinary inquiries regarding 48 officers who were suspended due to various reasons and no steps have been taken to conclude them one to three years have lapsed since the investigations commenced. The reason for the suspension of some officers was that they had not participated in the District Coordinating Committee meetings.

The Chairman of the Committee instructed that the legal proceedings be completed expeditiously, and the activities of the Excise Department be maintained efficiently.

He also said that necessary steps should be taken to fill the vacancies of senior and tertiary level posts in a proper manner which directly affect the mission of the Department and to submit a report on the current progress of these matters.

The Committee also said that the security sticker management process which began with a procurement cost of Rs. 1,597,559 was limited to imported liquor which amounted to only 0.28% of the total revenue of the Excise Department. The Committee stressed that it is an essential program for the standardisation of local liquor as well.

State Ministers Dayasiri Jayasekara, Lasantha Alagiyawanna, Shehan Semasinghe, MPs Tissa Attanayake, Dr. Upul Galappaththi, Ranjith Bandara, Secretary to the Treasury and Finance Ministry S.R. Attygalle, Commissioner General of Excise A. Bodaragama and other officials were present at the COPA meeting.