The government last month collected NT$233.3 billion (US$7.56 billion) in tax revenue, down NT$10.6 billion, or 4.3 percent, from a year earlier, dragged by weaker corporate and personal income contributions, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Revenue from corporate income tax fell 12.5 percent year-on-year to NT$69.5 billion, while personal income tax revenue fell 7.8 percent to NT$35.3 billion, ministry data showed.
Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Chen Yu-feng (陳玉豐) attributed the retreat in corporate revenue to bad weather late last month which led to some companies postponing their tax filings to this month.
Revenue from personal income tax was lower due to legal revisions made last year, Chen said.
However, the decline in revenue last month was not a concern as revenue from the business tax, which is a gauge of domestic business activity, posted a 4.1 percent increase to NT$77.2 billion, Chen said.
Revenue from the securities transaction tax fell 3.4 percent year-on-year to NT$7.1 billion as lingering uncertainty over the US-China trade dispute sidelined some investors, Chen said, adding that average daily turnover on the local bourse shrank from NT$145.4 billion to NT$140.1 billion.
As a result, revenue from the securities transaction tax is unlikely to meet the target set for this year, she said.
Meanwhile, revenue from the land value increment tax soared 21.4 percent to NT$7.4 billion, as large transactions offset a 2.4 percent fall in the number of deals, the ministry said.
The land value increment tax is a key indicator of property market activity. In the first nine months, there were 438,505 deals, a slight increase of 0.5 percent compared with the same period last year, the ministry said.
From January to last month, the ministry had accumulated NT$1.87 trillion of tax revenue, up 0.6 percent from a year earlier, it said.
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
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