Tax revenues dropped 12.3 percent from a year earlier to NT$65 billion (US$2.19 billion) last month, mainly due to lower contributions from consolidated income and securities transaction taxes, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Hsu Ray-lin (許瑞琳), deputy director of the ministry’s statistics department, attributed the decline to fewer working days because of the Lunar New Year holiday.
Hsu said the ministry remained optimistic that tax revenues this year could reach its target of NT$1.864 trillion, after cumulative revenues in the first two months of the year grew 10.6 percent from a year earlier.
Tax revenues totaled NT$185.4 billion in the first two months, up NT$17.8 billion from a year earlier, the ministry said in its monthly report.
Revenue from the securities transaction tax marked the largest annual decline, down 28.2 percent in the first two months, while revenue from the land increment tax hit an eight-year high, ministry data showed.
Meanwhile, the Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday sent representatives to the ministry to discuss whether the ministry could agree to a potential cut in the futures transaction tax.
The two sides did not reach a conclusion, with the ministry asking the commission to make a report on potential tax loss, which it will submit to the Cabinet for further discussion tomorrow.
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