If you haven't filed your taxes for last year yet, you're not alone. As of yesterday, more than half of those required to file taxes hadn't. But there is still time.
Tax offices will remain open until 7pm on Monday -- the last day people can file their taxes -- while the online tax-filing system will be open until midnight.
Officials said yesterday that a record 55 percent, or 2.73 million of the nation's 5 million single and joint filing taxpayers, had failed to complete the dreaded annual chore, even though they have only two working days left to do so.
PHOTO: LIAO CHENG-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Chen Wen-tzong (
Chen urged all taxpayers to file before the deadline or take advantage of the 24-hour online tax-filing system and pay with credit cards if they owe taxes.
The tax-filing rate in Taipei is similar to the nationwide average. According to Chen, 327,000 taxpayers -- or 49 percent -- of the capital city's 800,000 taxpayers have filed taxes.
And for Taipei's nearly 20,000 expatriate taxpayers -- who cannot use the online tax-filing system program -- Chen yesterday reminded them to file as soon as possible lest they waste time waiting in long lines at the tax offices.
With members of the public preferring to stay home to reduce the risk of catching SARS, Chen said that the number of people filing taxes online had increased by nearly 150 percent from last year.
So far, 640,000 taxpayers had logged on to the Internet to file their income tax reports compared to 280,000 during the same period last year, Chen said, adding that he expected to see more last-minute online filings.
The finance ministry said on Monday that health workers tending to SARS patients would be given another month to file their taxes.
According to the Ministry of Finance, Taiwan may face a shortfall of NT$106.6 billion in tax revenues this year, including a shortage of NT$5.2 billion in business taxes and NT$6.2 billion in securities-exchange transaction tax following the SARS epidemic.
To offset the tax losses, Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue
RSS