Another webinar by the Institute of Certified Management Accountants (CMA) of Sri Lanka took place on Thursday, September 5.
Over 600 people who were present gained a better know-how of how to fill and file tax returns through the Inland Revenue Department’s (IRD) Revenue Administration Management Information System (RAMIS).
Managing Partner of Ranaweera Associates, Athula Ranaweera and Senior Deputy Commissioner IRD Thusitha Gamage were the resource persons. The session was moderated by S. B. Gajendran of the Taxation Committee.
Founder of CMA, Prof. Laksman Warawala, “RAMIS is a digital system. The private sector has realised its importance but the public sector has not realised it. The Government should listen to the professionals since it’s the private sector that provides revenue to the State by paying taxes.”
Ranaweera briefed participants on the various taxes such as Income Tax, Value Added Tax (VAT) and Social Security Contribution Levy (SSCL) and the time period of implementation of tax laws. Speaking about the principals of taxation he said that the most lacklustre in Sri Lanka’s tax net is its failure to broaden its base. Despite rolling out RAMIS, he said only one million taxpayers have registered despite Sri Lanka’s 21 million population.
The brief touched on liability, frequency, tax residency, assessable income and basis of calculation. Ranaweera also differentiated between VAT and SSCL although both are based on domestic consumption. VAT is based on taxable activity, time of supply, supply of goods and services, among other things, he explained while SSCL’s applicability is based on importing, manufacture, service provided and wholesale/retail sale.
Expanding on one intricacy, Ranaweera said that unprocessed agriculture produce such as eggs and prawns are not applicable for SSCL.
Thusitha Gamage demonstrated how to file tax returns on the RAMIS system including Individual Income Tax, Partnership Income Tax (PIT), Corporate, Income Tax (CIT), SSCL and VAT.
The knowledge sharing session was followed by a quick Q and A where many participants quizzed Gamage on glitches in the system including time-limits and file sizes for which he said that RAMIS is still being tested and there will be amendments by the development team as more users interact with the system. When asked if there will be RAMIS smartphone app in the future, he said that the system is totally compatible on phone browsers and that the IRD will make an app available in the future.
In closing, Prof. Warawala re-emphasised that the success of RAMIS will depend on private, public joint effort and that professionals will be needed to file complicated forms such as corporate taxes. -JF
