Revenue from business taxes reached a record high of NT$172.8 billion (US$5.4 billion) in the first eight months, up 25.3 percent from a year ago, thanks to a rebound in domestic spending and a surge in imports, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
“The pickup of 25.3 percent was the largest increase since 1992,” said Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞), head of the ministry’s statistics department.
The ministry’s latest data showed that between January and last month, overall tax revenue increased NT$73.5 billion, or 7.4 percent, year-on-year to NT$1.69 trillion, but the result remained 0.4 percent lower than its budget.
While revenues from business taxes, land value increment taxes and custom tariffs increased from a year earlier, those from individual income and securities transaction taxes fell in the first eight months, with the former dropping NT$10.6 billion, or 4.5 percent from a year ago, and the latter declining NT$300 million, or 0.5 percent year-on-year.
The ministry said individual income taxes saw a shortfall of NT$45 billion, almost 10 percent lower than the budgetary goal, because of the impact of the global financial crisis and the implementation of tax incentives last year..
Last month alone, the ministry’s tallies showed tax revenue rose NT$24.7 billion, or 34.1 percent from a year earlier, to NT$97 billion, with individual income taxes posting the largest growth at NT$17.2 billion, or 67 percent from a year earlier.
Securities transaction taxes were up NT$1.9 billion, or 22.9 percent from a year earlier, to NT$10.2 billion last month, marking the second time this year that revenue has exceeded NT$10 billion, the ministry said.
The ministry said although revenue from income and securities transaction taxes was below expectations, revenue from business, commodity, custom tariffs and land value increment taxes picked up. The ministry is targeting NT$1.62 trillion in tax revenue this year.
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