Financial Times - Taxes, tourism and peace

The Department of Inland Revenue is now enforcing a 2006 budget proposal to encourage people to pay their taxes – silver and gold cards recognizing regular tax payers.

Privilege cards would be issued by the department to high net tax payers whose tax bill is from Rs 500,000 to Rs 1million.

The Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL) last week praised the scheme and said it was a good inducement to law-abiding tax payers.

“The department is the one single institution that repeatedly promoted and advanced the idea of affording recognition to the tax payers who willingly paid taxes and contributed towards the nation’s revenue generation. This has finally become a reality,” the federation said in a statement. Card holders will be entitled to priority treatment at the airport and customs in addition to the statutory boards including the two state banks.

But the federation also raised a valid point, which in fact was raised by this newspaper soon after the budget proposals were announced in November/December 2005 – why only recognize upper-class taxpayers?

What about the thousands of middle income groups who are regular taxpayers and not defaulted a single cent, despite rising costs of living and salary increases not matching inflation?

The Sunday Times FT raised this issue many months back and said it is unfair and unjust to discriminate middle income and law-abiding taxpayers. Middle and lower wage earners have also paid their dues. They too deserve to be recognized.

Thoughtful tourists

Responsible tourism is ensuring a location – considered good for a hotel by the tourist industry – remains untouched. Responsible tourism is ensuring rural villages are not swamped by tourists traveling in big buses that spout out fumes and ruin the environment.

“If the location is nice; let it stay that way. Don’t build structures. If you want to get a feel for village life and culture make sure you don’t ruin their environment.”

These were the words of environmentalist and conservationist Prof Sarath Kotagama who in his own, inimitable style spoke on responsible tourism vis-à-vis the environment at a recent discussion on this topic.

Local and foreign industry specialists said tourists were being encouraged to respect the culture and the environment in the many places they visit and also contribute towards enriching and safeguarding that environment. A study by the UK-based Travel Foundation found that in one hotel, two toasters at the buffer table that worked for four hours non-stop during breakfast consumed electricity that was equivalent to the energy consumption of the whole hotel per day.

A Kuoni director said when he walked into a Colombo hotel room, he couldn’t switch off the television, which was on standby power, because there was no way to switch off the TV. He then turned it off at the plug point. “A lot of energy can be saved by keeping the TV’s off; not on standby power,” he said.

In Thailand, tourists read story books to elderly citizens under a charity-on-travel programme.

The old-timers are happy and the tourists have a feel-good feeling, knowing they have enjoyed their holiday and done a good deed.

‘Responsible’ tourism might be the way forward for the Sri Lankan tourism industry clutching at straws amidst the gloomy outlook of war. It could be the means of a new product- finding a new angle (as one foreign speaker urged) to Sri Lankan tourism.

Peace-in-business

Business leaders and chamber heads from the north, east, south and west met last week and exchanged thoughts and ideas on how the business community could make a positive contribution to the shaky peace process.

Chamber officials from the northeast and the south questioned the genuineness of the Colombo business community towards their outstation colleagues and their plight. The message was clear – your concern is because your bottomline is affected; otherwise no one is interested.

That was indeed the case when after years of weary war, Sri Lanka First was launched. The media lashed out at that time saying the Colombo business community-led group had suddenly realized the need for a role in the peace process because its bottom-line was affected by the Katunayake airport attacks, high risk insurance premiums for ships calling at Colombo and the adverse impact on business and trade.

Nevertheless, this paper was among those who lauded that effort saying “it’s better late than never” and The Sunday Times FT has continued to encourage efforts of this nature because all initiatives – as long as they are sincere, honest and not money-making adventures – must be encouraged if the ultimate goal is an honourable peace for all Sri Lankans. However there is a need to reduce the number of talk shops, seminars and the like and have more constructive sessions where interactive discussions form the core of seminars/workshops on peace buildings instead of the staid-old five to eight speeches of 15-20 minutes duration for each speaker (which invariably stretches longer) and a mere 20-30 minutes left for discussion or what is called an open forum.

At the end of the day, that session is also reduced because business leaders are in a hurry to go home. Thus the most important element of the meeting becomes a hurry/thank you/looking at the time/last question please-type of session.

Those organizing such events (and this applies to the responsible tourism forum too) need to think out of the box. Such events end up being meaningless for participants outside the main organizers or head table invitees. People end up listening to a lot of stuff they are already aware of (some business leaders got up and left after a few speeches at the peace building session) and would prefer to raise questions, make comments and bring fresh insight into issues.

The seminar circuits in general had this problem because it follows a stereo-type structure – everyone wants to talk and leave just a few minutes for a discussion; that too because its part of the structure. None of our problems would be solved if we aren’t prepared to listen to others first.