Personal income tax revenues in the first six months of this year declined by the largest amount in history from a year ago. The huge drop was due to tax reduction measures the government implemented to help the nation weather last year’s financial crisis, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
The state coffers collected a total of NT$203.4 billion (US$6.327 billion) in personal income taxes in the first half of this year, which is the lowest amount since 2006. That represented a decline of NT$32.7 billion, or 13.8 percent, from the same period last year, ministry data showed.
“This is because the financial crunch took a toll on the nation last year when unemployment was rising and companies were forced to give unpaid leave,” Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞), head of the ministry’s statistics department, told a media briefing.
Revenue from business income taxes in the first six months amounted to NT$188.1 billion, up NT$1.9 billion, or 1 percent from a year ago, but the ministry said that it was the result of delayed tax payments by some companies last year, which didn’t enter their accounts until last July.
Nevertheless, overall tax revenues increased NT$40.5 billion, or 4.7 percent year-on-year, to NT$898.4 billion in the first half year, with business taxes seeing the largest growth at NT$25.7 billion, or 26 percent, from a year earlier.
Last month alone, the nation’s tax revenues dropped NT$92.7 billion, or 28.3 percent from a year earlier, to NT$235.3 billion. Of the total, business income taxes posted the largest decline at NT$47.7 billion, or 36.3 percent, year-on-year, followed by personal income taxes, which edged down NT$34.8 billion, or 27.5 percent.
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