Stamp duty is a source of income for the government and non-supervision of this procedure has resulted in loss of revenue for the state. Most of the ordinary people and small companies always honour this piece of legislation. But there are instances where wealthy people and large companies avoid this levy by way of various manipulations.

I have episode to relate. When I purchased a piece of land from a reputed finance company in Colombo, I was not subjected to stamp duty. The company is a large one which deals with deposits, loans, leasing, pawning and real estate. The work load of the company is so heavy that it is a difficult task to check whether they adhere to government regulations. They just affix a rupee stamp and sign over it and hand it over to the customer as standard procedure. If questioned, they tell the customer; "why are you worried? You are up on the deal!"

Customers have no time to check whether they charge the correct stamp duty. They want the transaction to be handled quickly. Therefore, this type of malpractice goes on.

In the newspapers, we see advertisements about various pawning auctions. All collections of such auctions are liable for VAT. But companies do not hold auctions and sell the articles to private dealers to avoid VAT. They are aware that the Income Tax Department is not having a proper control over such auctions. If the department assigns someone with the task of monitoring such newspaper advertisements, the department will be able to collect large a large sum of money.

In all these instances, it stresses the need for the Income Tax Department to keep a tab on these transactions. Such vigilance on the part of the tax people may help the government to collect more revenue.

I hope that Deputy Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiye will take note of these facts.