7 Ideas I Sent to Sri Lanka's Ministry of Finance to Fix Our Revenue Problem

Every Sri Lankan abroad has a theory about what is wrong with the country, and a fix for it. I have heard hundreds of these in WhatsApp groups, at gatherings, over calls home. Most stop there. A rant, a forward, a sigh, and everyone moves on with their day.

In June 2026, I decided not to be one of those voices this time. Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Finance had opened a citizen submission window through its Revenue Management Committee, asking for ideas on strengthening the country’s medium- and long-term revenue. So I sat down and wrote seven of them, ten pages, drawing heavily on what I have watched Singapore do since I moved here in 2018.

I am not an economist. I am a software engineer with an opinion and enough conviction to put it on paper properly instead of leaving it in a group chat. These are my personal proposals, not government policy, and the committee is free to accept, reject, or ignore every word of it. But I wanted the ideas out where more than a WhatsApp group could see them, so here they are, condensed to a ten-minute read.

The one idea behind all seven

Before the list, one sentence that ties everything together. The state should be an enabler, not an unconditional provider. If the government invests in you, through free education or free healthcare, you contribute back once you are able to. Every proposal below is a different version of that same idea.

1. Free university, repaid only once you can afford it

University stays free to enter for everyone, regardless of background. But once a graduate earns above a set salary for two straight years, the exact cost of their education, with no interest added, gets deducted gradually through the tax system. Anyone who never crosses that income line never repays a cent. Australia’s HECS-HELP and the UK’s student loan system already run on this model, and both keep their universities funded without turning away students who cannot pay upfront.

2. If you emigrate, settle the account first

This is the one people react to fastest, so I want to be precise about it. Someone educated entirely at state expense, from Grade 1 through university, who then takes on another country’s citizenship, should settle what the state spent on them before making that switch. Not blocked from leaving. Not punished. Just settle the account, the same way you would close out a loan before moving banks. Diplomats, humanitarian workers, and anyone already repaying under proposal one get credit or exemptions, and instalment plans exist for people who cannot pay in one go.

3. Free healthcare for those who need it, not everyone by default

Full free coverage stays exactly as it is for the poorest, tied to the existing Samurdhi and Aswesuma welfare databases. Middle-income earners pay a small co-payment scaled to what they make. Higher earners pay closer to market rate, except for critical illness, which stays subsidised for everyone. People who track verifiable healthy habits get a bigger subsidy. One line I insisted on: mental health crises, including suicide attempts, are always treated as emergencies first. No cost recovery at the point of crisis, ever.

4. Make staying healthy a national habit, and tax what makes people sick

A sustained national push for fitness and better eating, walking paths and public gyms built into how cities already develop, ministers visibly modelling the habit instead of just announcing it. Alongside that, sin taxes on sugary drinks, ultra-processed food, tobacco, and alcohol. It raises money immediately and lowers the country’s future healthcare bill at the same time, which is about as close to a free lunch as fiscal policy gets.

5. Teach kids where government money actually comes from

A mandatory civic economics class from Grade 6, covering how taxes are collected and what happens when they are not paid. Mock tax filing exercises at O/L and A/L, school visits to the IRD, and homework that gets parents talking about taxes at home through their kids. Singapore does a version of this, and it shows up directly in how automatically its citizens comply. This one is a slow burn, ten to fifteen years before it fully pays off, but the household conversations start on day one.

6. Make it easier to go legal than to stay invisible

A cheap, simple micro-business licence for street vendors and small traders, priced to bring people in rather than to collect revenue from the licence itself. Once licensed, a vendor gets access to formal banking and government contracts they could never reach before. Organised trading zones, modelled loosely on Singapore’s hawker centres, plus mobile and digital registration, so nobody has to lose a day’s earnings standing in a government office to get legal.

7. Make frivolous candidates put money where their mouth is

Every election, ballots get printed for candidates who pull in 100 to 150 votes and never had a real chance. The state pays for all of it. Under this proposal, candidates lodge a refundable deposit before contesting, and get it back only if they clear 5% of the vote. Miss that, and the deposit goes into an election cost recovery fund instead. Anyone who cannot afford the deposit can submit 10,000 verified signatures instead, so genuine grassroots candidates are never priced out.

Why I bothered writing this down

I do not know if the Revenue Management Committee will take any of this forward. I have no illusions about how citizen submissions like this usually go. But I would rather be the person who wrote it down properly and sent it in than the person still ranting in the group chat next year.

If you are Sri Lankan and have ever complained about what needs to change back home, I would genuinely like to hear your version. Read these seven, disagree with half of them if you want to. Just write yours down too, and send it somewhere it can actually be read.