Still heavy taxes on sanitary napkins, Mangala Samaraweera exposes

Former Minister of Finance of Sri Lanka, Mangala Samaraweera said that the taxes on sanitary napkins totalled 101.2%  when he removed 30% import tariffs in October 2018.

However, the present government says that they have restructured the taxes. Several Ministers said in social media that taxation on sanitary towels has not been increased. Accordingly, the pre-budget import tax on sanitary towels was 30% and there was no CESS tax on them. The government has reduced the custom import duty to 15% and added a new CESS tax of 15%. As a result, the tax amount remains the same.

However, state-owned Sunday Observer newspaper on 23 September 2018 outlined the tax structure on sanitary napkins as follows: