Dr. Harsha De Silva, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee of Public Finance revealed today (06) in Parliament that there are 03 online casino businesses operating in the country without paying any tax to the country.
The MP said that the officials of the Inland Revenue Department have gone to find these addresses , but it was revealed that there are no relevant businesses at those addresses. The Inland Revenue Department officers who searched these addresses found that these businesses do not exist at the respective addresses. But these businesses exist only on the Internet he said.
“Currently, there are 07 casino businesses in the country. But only 04 businesses pay taxes at some extent”. Dr. Harsha said.
He said that the casino business regulation bill was presented to the Public finance committee yesterday, but it was further refused to approve it.
The chairman said that the reason for this was that there was no formal process related to the establishment of a Casino regulatory Authority , which was necessary for the regulation of casino business in this act and the Ministry of Finance had requested two years for the establishment of this institution.
Dr. Harsha de Silva said in the Parliament that the Finance Committee was of the opinion that such time could not be given, and ordered the Secretary of the Ministry of Finance to give the proposed timeline for the establishment before 3 pm today.
