Sri Lanka starts process to turn undisclosed assets white with 1-pct tax

Sri Lanka’s cabinet of ministers had cleared a proposal to allow undisclosed assets to be brought to the open and invested giving effect to an earlier budget proposal for a tax amnesty.

The cabinet had cleared a proposed bill to put the plan into effect.

The move is to encourage people with undisclosed income and assets to invest them after paying a 1 percent ‘tax on voluntary disclosure’.

Such a bill in 2002 drew heavy fire from the then opposition.

Undisclosed assets in many countries are a result of not paying the proper taxes or money kept abroad to avoid currency depreciation and exchange controls which have been earned from legal economic activities and not criminal enterprises.