Tax revenues last year beat official target by 8.2%

Tax revenues last year totaled NT$1.725 trillion (US$53 billion), exceeding the government's target by NT$109.86 billion, or 8.2 percent, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.

Tax revenues from securities transactions jumped 43.2 percent from a year ago to reach a record NT$128.9 billion, surpassing the NT$126.1 billion collected in 1997, ministry statistics showed.

"The record-high daily transactions on the local bourse last year contributed to the robust growth in securities transaction tax revenue," Lee Li-shu (李麗雪), director of the ministry's statistics department, said at a media briefing yesterday.

Daily transaction volume in the Taiwan Stock Exchange averaged NT$133.78 billion last year, up 38.8 percent from NT$96.37 billion a year ago, the exchange's data showed.

Overall, securities transactions contributed 7.5 percent to the total tax intake, up from the 5.6 percent in 2006, ministry tallies showed.

However, monthly tax revenues for securities transactions slid 12.3 percent last month, affected by the global financial turmoil and investor caution ahead of the elections.

Income tax revenues, which accounted for 42.3 percent of total revenues, rose 13 percent year-on-year to NT$730 billion.

Sales tax revenues dropped 151.3 percent to NT$23.97 billion, affected by new rules requiring the sales tax of banking and insurance companies be listed as a new category.

Land value incremental tax intake shrank 18.3 percent in line with the decline in land-value appreciation, Lee said.

Last year's national taxation rate -- a gauge that divides tax revenues by GDP -- was 13.7 percent, up 0.2 percentage points from 2006, ministry tallies showed.