Despite declining revenues from the securities transaction tax, the nation’s overall tax revenue increased 2.8 percent from a year ago to NT$1.416 trillion (US$48.11 billion) in the first nine months, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
That represented the highest level for the period since government records began, the ministry said in its monthly report.
However, the ministry did not say whether full-year tax revenue would meet the government’s target of NT$1.823 trillion.
“We still need to make more of an effort,” Hsu Ray-lin (許瑞琳), deputy director of the ministry’s statistics department, told a press conference, adding that lower-than-expected revenue from the securities transaction tax continued to raise uncertainty about overall full-year tax revenue.
Securities transaction tax revenue slid 26.9 percent to NT$55 billion in the first nine months from a year earlier, marking the lowest level in the January-to-September period since 2005, the report said.
By contrast, revenues from consolidated income tax and the business tax increased.
Revenue from consolidated income tax rose 15.7 percent year-on-year to NT$341.1 billion in the first three quarters, while revenue from the business tax increased 3.5 percent to NT$235.9 billion, both record highs.
Last month, total tax revenue fell 5.8 percent from a year earlier to NT$182.2 billion.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained