The functioning of the Ministry of Finance’s online tax-filing system was severely impaired yesterday, with slowdowns preventing people from declaring tax returns, officials said, adding that the system had resumed normal operations by 3:45pm.
The ministry attributed the issues to many people taking advantage of the Workers’ Day holiday to declare their taxes or tax returns, overloading the Web site with traffic on the first day of the tax season.
The problem began at about 9:30am, the ministry’s Financial Data Center said.
It said the problem was mainly the result of heavy user traffic, which caused the system to be less responsive, dismissing concerns over hacker or malware attacks.
With online tax filing becoming increasingly popular, more than 3.55 million households in Taiwan, or 58 percent of tax-filing households, last year submitted their tax returns via the Internet, the ministry said.
Tax offices nationwide would suspend their lunch breaks and extend working hours until 7pm today to help digest tax-filing demand, the ministry said.
This year’s tax filing season began on May 1 and runs through June 1.
The government collected a record high of NT$2.2 trillion (US$72.8 billion) in tax revenue last year, an increase of 3.1 percent from a year earlier and beating its budget target by NT$120 billion, ministry data showed.
The figure could be higher this year as the economy improves.
Additional report by CNA
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure