All most every local television now telecasts Government’s “Rata hadamu- Badu Gevamu” (Build the country - Pay taxes) series of TV advertisements at prime air times on the directions of the Finance Ministry, several local TV channel heads said.

The Treasury is spending millions of rupees of public money to make aware the need of paying taxes using tax payer’s money, a head of Colombo taxpayers' society claimed.

The cost for production and telecast this advertisement per week in a single local channel is in the region of around Rs.62 million.

And the cost for the telecasting of this advert in four main TV channels is around Rs.128 million.

Noting that it is unbecoming for the Good Governance government to spend millions of rupees of taxpayers’ money to create awareness among the very same taxpayers, he added that what the government should do to increase the tax base is to have a flat rate of tax for all income taxpayers.

Why should one pay taxes on income? People already pay taxes on goods and services (VAT,etc). Why should they pay on income as well?, he asked.