President orders not to charge withholding tax on sale of teledramas

President Maithripala Sirisena has given instructions to the Minister of Finance to inform the relevant institutions in writing not to charge the 14% of withholding taxes for the sale of Tele Dramas, rectifying the present position of charging 14% of withholding taxes when selling Tele Dramas. 

This tax was levied due to the wrong interpretation of the new tax policy, the President’s Media Division said.

The President further said that, if there is any obstacle for the progress of the field of art, including the local cinema industry and the field of the tele dramas due to the new tax policy, he will take necessary actions to provide reliefs to those issues after consulting the relevant institutions.

He made these remarks during a meeting held with the representatives of the Associations of cinema and tele dramas at the Presidential Secretariat, today (06).

The representatives apprised the President in detail regarding the issues faced by them due to the Government’s new tax policy.

The President paying his attention regarding this said that he would provide fair solutions to these issues in a manner which will not harm the new tax policy of the government.

He said it is the duty of a government to intervene for the protection and progress of cinema, tele dramas and other forms of art and the current government would not hesitate to take any required decisions for this purpose.

The discussion also covered the steps taken by the government for the protection of cinema and tele drama industries.

The President also inquired into the committees appointed covering all the sections of the field of art as instructed by him earlier and the further steps required to uplift the local cinema and local tele drama industries. He inquired into the progress of the work of the committees and insisted the need to complete the programs expeditiously.

Minister Mangala Samaraweera, Wijeydasa Rajapaksha, Deputy Minister Lasantha Alagiyawanna, Secretary of Ministry of Higher Education J.J. Rathnasiri, and other officials and Somaratne Dissnayake, Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, Nalan Mendis, Attorney–at –Law Douglas Siriwardana, Deepani Silva, Chandani Seneviratne, Inoka Sathyangani, and other veteran artistes were present in this event.