Can a Tax Agent File Your Tax Return in Sri Lanka?

Handing your tax return to someone else feels like it should be simple. You pay an accountant, they file, you get on with your life. Mostly it is that simple.

But the Inland Revenue Act is specific about three things people tend to assume: who is allowed to act for you, how you appoint them, and which parts of the job never leave your hands. Get the first two wrong and your agent isn't properly authorised. Get the third wrong and you find out, at assessment, that a mistake you never saw is still yours.

Here's what the law actually requires.

Can someone else file my tax return in Sri Lanka?

Yes. The Act grants this in two separate places, and it helps to read them as two separate permissions.

The first is section 115, on authorised representatives:

"The Commissioner General may specify the circumstances under which a taxpayer may designate an authorized representative to communicate with the Department on behalf of the taxpayer and shall accept a designation made in accordance with such circumstances."

Notice "shall accept". Once you designate someone in line with the specified circumstances, the Department is obliged to accept it. This isn't a favour the IRD grants case by case.

The Commissioner-General used that power in a Gazette notification dated 01 April 2018, effective the same day, setting out those circumstances as a schedule of 13 purposes.

The second is section 126(4), on signing:

"A taxpayer or the taxpayer's duly authorised agent, shall sign the return, attesting to its accuracy and completeness."

That's an either/or. The return needs one signature, from you or from your duly authorised agent. If you're filing for the first time, our guide on how to file your first tax return in Sri Lanka walks through what the return itself asks for.

Who can legally act as my tax agent?

Not just anyone. Section 195 defines an authorised representative as "any individual who is authorized in writing by a person to act on his behalf from time to time for the purposes of this Act" who also falls into one of the following categories. This is the complete list:

Two of those entries surprise people.

Your own employee can be your authorised representative, which matters if you run a business and someone in-house handles the books. And if you're an individual, a relative qualifies with no professional membership at all. A spouse or a sibling can deal with the IRD for you, which is worth knowing if you're abroad or unwell.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation entry is new wording. The Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act, No. 11 of 2026, certified on 03 June 2026, replaced the earlier reference to the Sri Lankan Institute of Taxation with the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Sri Lanka, with effect from the certification date.

Do tax agents have to be registered with the IRD?

No. Neither the Act nor the 2018 notification creates a registration, licensing, or approval scheme for tax agents. There's no public register of approved tax agents you can look someone up in.

What the Act sets instead is a qualification test. Your agent doesn't register as a tax agent. They qualify by holding one of the memberships in the table above, or by being your employee or your relative.

One narrow continuity rule exists, and it sits in the transitional provisions of the regulations made under section 194 (Gazette Extraordinary No. 2064/53 of 01 April 2018) rather than in the Act itself. An accountant or individual approved by the Commissioner-General under the old Inland Revenue Act, No. 10 of 2006 for the purposes of the authorised representative definition is deemed to have been approved under the 2017 Act. That preserves a pre-2018 approval. It doesn't create an ongoing registry.

How do I authorise a tax agent to act for me?

In writing. Section 195 is explicit that the individual must be "authorized in writing by a person to act on his behalf from time to time". A verbal arrangement, however long-standing, does not meet the definition.

The written authorisation should name your agent, name you, carry your Taxpayer Identification Number, and state what they're authorised to do.

That last part matters more than it looks. The 2018 notification works purpose by purpose. It lists 13 specific things a representative may be designated for, and item 13 is a catch-all covering "any other case where the representative is specifically being authorized in writing by the tax payer". So anything outside the listed purposes has to be spelled out in your authorisation rather than assumed.

What can my tax agent do on my behalf?

The April 2018 Schedule sets out 13 purposes. Here they are in the notification's own order:

Read that list as a menu, not a package. Several items map onto things people usually try to handle themselves and shouldn't have to. Item 07 is the route to amending a return you've already filed. Item 10 covers claiming a tax refund end to end, including the correspondence that follows. Item 08 lets an agent carry an administrative review of an assessment for you, including making written submissions and settling.

Item 11 is the one worth pausing on. An authorised representative can stand in for you in an investigation under section 186. If you're going to want that, put it in the authorisation before you need it, not during.

Do I still have to sign my own tax return?

Not necessarily. Section 126(4) is an either/or, so a properly authorised agent can sign in your place.

But there's a second signature rule that catches people out. Section 126(5):

"Where a return or part of a return was prepared for reward by some other person, including by an approved accountant, other than a full-time employee of the taxpayer, that other person shall also sign the return."

Three details in that sentence do real work:

• "for reward." Paid preparation is the trigger. If money changed hands, the preparer signs.
• "including by an approved accountant." Approved accountants are an example, not the boundary. The rule reaches any paid preparer, whatever their title.
• "or part of a return." Preparing a section of it counts. You can't split the work to avoid the signature.

The carve-out is a full-time employee of the taxpayer. Your in-house bookkeeper preparing your return doesn't trigger the extra signature.

There's a definitional trap here that's easy to miss, because the Act uses two different lists. "Approved accountant" is defined in section 195 as a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka, or a fellow member of the Association of Accounting Technicians of Sri Lanka where the turnover of the person's or partnership's business for the year doesn't exceed Rs. 100 million. But an AAT fellow member does not appear on the section 195 list of authorised representatives.

Take Nadeesha, a freelance designer with Rs. 6,400,000 of income for the year. She pays an AAT fellow member to prepare her return. Her turnover is far below Rs. 100 million, so that person is an approved accountant for her, and section 126(5) requires them to sign the return as preparer. What it doesn't do is make them her authorised representative. Unless they also fall into one of the section 195 limbs, by being specified by the Commissioner-General, or by being her relative or her employee, they can't be the one who deals with the Department on her behalf under section 115. Nadeesha would still sign her own return, or appoint someone from the section 195 list to sign it for her.

Preparing your return and representing you are two different permissions. Ask which one you're actually buying.

What stays my responsibility once an agent takes over?

This is the part worth reading twice.

Section 128 does two things in one sentence, and they land on two different people:

"Every return, statement, or form purporting to be furnished under this Act by or on behalf of any person shall be deemed to have been furnished by that person or with the person's authority, as the case may be, unless the contrary is proved, and any person signing such return, statement, or form shall deemed to be cognisant of all matters contained therein."

The first limb says the return is deemed to be yours, furnished by you or with your authority, unless the contrary is proved. The second limb says whoever signs is deemed to know everything in it. So if your agent signs, your agent is the one deemed cognisant of every figure.

That second point is not a shelter for you. Section 131 closes it:

"A tax return that is purported to be filed by or on behalf of a taxpayer shall be treated as having been filed by the taxpayer or with the taxpayer's authority unless the contrary is proved."

The return is treated as filed by you. The assessment is raised on you. The tax is yours to pay. And section 126(3) adds that an Assistant Commissioner isn't bound by your return at all, and may determine your liability from any sources of information available to them.

The practical consequence is short. Read the return before it's signed. Your agent is deemed to know what's in it, but you're the one the assessment lands on, and the only way to reconcile those two facts is to look at the numbers yourself. That's far easier when your records are in order all year rather than reconstructed in November, and when you hand over a complete document package instead of a folder of screenshots.

How do I change or cancel my tax agent?

The Act's answer here is thin, and knowing that is better than assuming a procedure exists.

Section 195 describes the authorisation as being to act "from time to time", and requires it in writing. Neither the Act nor the 2018 notification says how you withdraw, revoke, or cancel a designation. On that specific question, the statute is silent.

That puts the weight on the authorisation document itself. Two things are worth doing when you sign one:

1. Write the scope in. Name the purposes from the Schedule your agent is authorised for, instead of granting open-ended authority you'd later have to unwind.
2. Write an end date in. An authorisation that lapses on a date you chose is far easier to manage than one you have to cancel through a procedure the Act doesn't describe.

If you're switching agents mid-year, confirm the current withdrawal procedure with the IRD directly. That's administrative practice rather than statute.

Appointing a tax agent in Sri Lanka comes down to three things. Pick someone who qualifies under section 195. Authorise them in writing, naming the purposes you want covered. And read the return before it goes in, because section 131 makes it yours whoever files it. Do those three and handing over your filing is exactly as simple as it should be.