The national treasury collected NT$102.6 billion (US$3.33 billion) in personal and corporate income taxes last month, up 5.9 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Personal income taxes rose NT$2.5 billion, while business income taxes increased by NT$2.1 billion, thanks to wage gains and lower tax returns, the ministry’s report showed.
However, business taxes declined by NT$3.3 billion, as cheaper oil prices canceled out higher tax rates in the banking and insurance sectors, the report said.
Commodity taxes rose by 13.9 percent year-on-year to NT$16.9 billion last month, as taxes from car sales picked up 35 percent to NT$8.1 billion, the report said, adding that taxes on imported cars surged 62.1 percent to NT$1.8 billion.
“It appears the wealthy do not mind the heavy taxes on imported cars,” statistics department Deputy Director Hsu Ray-lin (許瑞琳) said.
New license plates for imported cars rose 19.8 percent in the first four months of the year, outperforming the 5.9 percent increase for overall new car plates, the report said.
However, land value increment taxes contracted 15.2 percent to NT$7.1 billion last month, while the number of cases dropped 16.2 percent to 50,095, extending a soft patch for property transactions, the report said.
The national treasury took in NT$456 billion for the first four months, exceeding the budget’s target by 3.6 percent, the report said.
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