Importers Want One Unified Tax Bracket in Budget 2027 — Would Cars Actually Get Cheaper?

The Ceylon Automobile Importers Association is pushing Budget 2027 to scrap the current multi-tier duty structure for a single unified rate. CAIA president Prasad Manage says today's brackets choke out everything except a narrow slice of models, while buyers get priced out of simple 1500cc hybrids that do 30+ km/l. His pitch: a flatter system brings in more units, so total duty collected could rise even as the per-vehicle tax rate looks lower on paper. The pushback is obvious — a flat rate also removes the government's ability to tax big-engine SUVs and double cabs harder than small hybrids, so the "relief" could just as easily flatten prices across the board, benefiting guzzlers as much as economy cars. And tax brackets here have been rewritten more than once in two years already, with each rewrite moving the goalposts for anyone who'd been saving toward a specific model. If you're mid-save for a car right now, does a unified tax sound like real relief, or just another bracket to wait out until the next budget changes it again? ඒකාබද්ධ බදු ක්‍රමයක් ආවොත් වාහන මිල අඩු වේවිද, නැත්නම් තව කාලයක් බලාඉන්න ප්‍රශ්නයක් විතරක්ද?