Tax revenue for last year may be short of the government’s target by NT$44.8 billion (US$1.48 billion) because of lower-than-expected contributions from business income taxes and the securities transaction tax, according to preliminary statistics from the Ministry of Finance (MOF) yesterday.
Tax revenue for last month increased 1 percent year-on-year to NT$105.2 billion, boosting the full-year tax revenue to a 1.2 percent over 2012’s result at NT$1.819 trillion.
Last year’s total is the highest in the nation’s history, but still below the government’s target of NT$1.863 trillion, the ministry said.
The ministry said the shortfall could narrow to about NT$30 billion when it provides more accurate statistics next month.
That is because the preliminary data does not include some taxes collected by the other government agencies, which are expected to enter the national coffers this month, the ministry's statistics department Deputy Director Hsu Ray-lin (許瑞琳) told a press conference in Taipei.
The government had set a target of 3.7 percent year-on-year growth in tax revenue for last year, compared with NT$1.7967 trillion in 2012, but sluggish economic sentiment in 2012 reduced the business income taxes and securities transaction tax generated last year.
The ministry’s report showed that the business income tax brought in NT$349.7 billion last year, down 4.9 percent from 2012, while the securities transaction tax brought in NT$71 billion, down 1.3 percent from a year earlier.
However, the land value increment tax contributed NT$103.3 billion last year, the most since 1998, and a 27.3 percent increase over 2012.
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