Tax revenues in the first quarter reached NT$309.9 billion (US$10.65 billion), the strongest first-quarter figure since 2000, after revenues stood at NT$138 billion last month, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
The nation had reported a record first-quarter tax revenue of NT$357.6 billion in 2000, the ministry’s data showed.
This year’s figure represented a 4.9 percent increase from a year earlier and accounted for 104.1 percent of the government’s budget goal, the ministry’s statement showed.
“The tax revenues rose higher than expected in the first quarter, driving up the government’s confidence on achieving the tax revenue goal for this year,” Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞), head of the ministry’s statistics department, told a media briefing.
The ministry expected to collect tax revenues of NT$1.679 trillion this year, up NT$57.2 billion from last year, Lin said.
“The pickup in sales tax, commodity tax, land value increment tax and tariffs led to the growth of tax revenues in the first quarter,” Lin said.
The first-quarter revenue from the sales tax hit a record high of NT$88 billion, up 7 percent year-on-year as the momentum of domestic consumption and imports remained strong, the statement showed.
Land value increment tax revenue amounted to NT$22.9 billion, posting the strongest first-quarter level since 2005, indicating the trading volume in the local housing market increased, statistics showed.
Commodity tax revenue amounted to NT$36.7 billion in the first quarter, up 16.5 percent from a year ago, while revenue from tariffs totaled NT$21.9 billion, up 13.6 percent over the same period, statistics showed.
Although the tax revenue figure grew higher than expected, Lin refused to comment on whether the ministry would be able to finance raises for civil servants.
“The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics will collect all the necessary figures and evaluate whether the additional tax revenues will be enough to cover the raises,” Lin said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last