Sri Lanka’s cheque bouncing due to insufficient funds in payees’ accounts has increased during the past few months as result of loss of income of the middle class, financial analysts claimed.
Cheques totalling a value of around LKR 3 billion that have been given to the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), have been returned from 2016 up to now owing to various reasons mainly Covid-19 crisis, the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) said.
According to official data, a total of 2,600 cheques have been returned within the first six months of this year.
The number of dishonoured cheques received by the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) had risen from 4494 recorded in 2015 to 8060 in June 2019, according to the auditor general’s report.
Taxpayers remit funds to the IRD’s Revenue Collection Account, and once the details on the payments made by taxpayers are furnished by banks, the tax files are updated.
“…it was observed that the internal control systems (of the IRD) for looking into the measures on their settlement and regarding follow up actions were not properly in operation,” the report read.
As a result, Value Added Taxes worth LKR 2.03 billion, Nation Building Taxes worth LKR 427.8 million, and Income Taxes worth LKR 317.8 million were among the revenue lost by the government.
Accordingly, the auditor general has recommended adopting money collecting methods such as bank drafts, other technical payment methods in addition to cheques to address this problem.
He has also recommended suspending bank accounts, suspending or taking over properties of taxpayers, and initiating court action relating to the dishonoured cheques exceeding LKR 500,000 in value.
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