🇱🇰 13 Million TINs, but How Many People Know Theirs?

⭕ The IRD says over 13 million of Sri Lanka 🇱🇰's estimated 17 million eligible adults already have TINs (76%). That sounds impressive on paper, but there's a problem, many people don't even know they have one!

⭕ Much of this registration was done automatically, using information the IRD already had, rather than through applications submitted by individuals. In fact, back in 2025, the department itself acknowledged that most of the 11 million TINs registered at the time had not been communicated to their holders.

⭕ That failure is now becoming more visible. Since November 1, 2026, (Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act, No. 11 of 2026) TIN certificates have become mandatory for eight specified transactions, covering banking, vehicle registration, property and business-related activities. As a result, people are rushing to IRD offices, sometimes simply to obtain a number the department has already assigned to them.

⭕ Meanwhile, the IRD continues to send tax notices, sometimes in unnecessarily threatening language, even to people who already comply with their tax obligations. Rather than frustrating taxpayers and spending public money on poorly targeted notices, wouldn't it make more sense to use those resources to inform people of their existing TINs, using verified contact details?

⭕ What makes this particularly astonishing is that mandatory TIN registration for adults was first gazetted on May 31, 2023. More than three years later, the IRD is still struggling with something as basic as communicating those numbers to the people who need them. The policy itself is not the problem. Its implementation is.

⭕ Requiring every adult aged 18 and above to have a TIN is absolutely the right approach, whether or not they currently earn taxable income. Bringing everyone into the registration system would make it easier to identify those earning taxable income who remain outside the tax net, improve compliance and broaden the actual tax base.

Over time, this could help improve Sri Lanka 🇱🇰's tax-to-GDP ratio while distributing the tax burden more fairly, instead of relying so heavily on those already paying their share.

#SriLanka