Ahead of the November 2019 election, Sri Lankan presidential challenger Gotabaya Rajapaksa proposed sweeping tax cuts so reckless the incumbent government thought it must be a campaign gimmick.
The finance minister at the time, Mangala Samaraweera, called a briefing to assail the "dangerous” pledge to reduce the value-added tax to 8% from 15% and scrap other levies. To him, it was simple math: Sri Lanka collected relatively less revenue than nearly any other country, and its high debt load had forced it to seek cash from the International Monetary Fund.
"If these proposals are implemented like this not only will the entire country go bankrupt,” the minister warned, "but the entire country will become another Venezuela or another Greece.”