The nation’s tax revenue last month increased 4.6 percent to NT$170.2 billion (US$5.76 billion) from a year earlier, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
In the first 11 months of the year, total tax revenue totalled NT$1.714 trillion, up 1.2 percent from the same period last year, but still NT$39.1 billion short of the government’s target, the ministry said.
However, increases in tax revenue over the past three months could help the government narrow its full-year tax revenue shortfall to about NT$45 billion, from the NT$80 billion it estimated in September, it said.
“We have revised downward this year’s shortfall forecast as tax revenue over the past few months grew more than expected,” Hsu Ray-lin (許瑞琳), deputy director of the ministry’s statistics department, told a press conference.
If tax revenues collected this month remain flat compared with the same period last year, the shortfall in tax revenue for the full year could amount to NT$45.9 billion, Hsu said.
The sluggish economy has reduced the levels of business income tax, consolidated income tax and securities transaction tax generated thus far this year — the major factor dragging down the nation’s full-year tax revenue.
However, revenue from land value increment taxes has risen 28.4 percent to NT$93.1 billion, exceeding the government’s guidance of NT$82.86 billion, data showed.
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