While continuously increasing taxes imposed on the public, the government has completely removed the income taxes on casino owners for a period of 10 years, the United National Party (UNP) charged today.  

UNP parliamentarian Dr Harsha de Silva stated that the government had issued the gazette notification at 12 midnight yesterday, providing sweeping tax concessions for Australian billionaire and gaming tycoon James Packer’s casino.

With this gazette notification Sri Lanka has set a Guinness world record as the first country to waive taxes imposed on casinos and to provide them with tax concessions, he said, during a press conference today.

Dr Silva further stated that James Packer recently received permission from the Australian government to build a casino in Sidney after agreeing to pay 29% in taxes.

He inquired as to why the government is providing such tax concession to only James Packer. While pointing out that the UNP is completely against this move, Harsha state that they will not allow this regulation to be passed in the parliament.

  He urged all politicians, who are of the opinion that the taxes on the public should be reduced, to also object to this.

When asked by a reporter regarding the rumors of UNP MP Dayasiri Jayasekara crossing over to the government, Harsha said: “not only him, even I will represent the government. Our (UNP) government. We both will represent our (UNP) government in the future.”

He stated that they will not represent the opposition forever and that the reason they entered politics was to represent the government someday.

“We don’t know about their (the government’s) frogs that jump from here to there. We don’t have frogs like that,” he said.