Online tax filings popular
More than 60 percent of all tax returns for last year that had been filed by Friday were filed online, Ministry of Finance statistics showed.
A total of just more than 1.97 million tax returns had been filed by last week, with 1.23 million of those being filed via the Internet, the tallies showed.
As the last week ahead of the tax-filing deadline usually sees a surge in the number of returns filed online, the number of online tax filings is expected to surpass half of the total for the year for the first time.
The latest ministry statistics released yesterday morning showed that 1.56 million tax returns have been filed, compared with 1.48 million for the same date last year.
The deadline for filing tax returns for this year is Monday.
FSC plans draft amendment
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday approved draft amendments to relax regulations on listed companies which plan to buy back their shares from the open market.
Once the deregulation has been kick-started, listed companies will no longer need to report share buy-back plans to the commission after filing to the local stock exchange, the commission said in a statement.
The nation’s listed companies would also be allowed to quote prices of planned buy-back shares during trading sessions, the commission said. Formerly, listed companies could only quote share prices 30 minutes after the stock market opens so as not to manipulate opening prices.
But no companies will be allowed to quote prices before the market begins trading, the commission said.
BlackBerry 'highly secure'
The Canadian maker of BlackBerry, involved in a security scrap with India, has promised customers it will not allow New Delhi to read text messages sent on its mobiles.
India, battling a host of insurgencies in places ranging from Muslim-majority Kashmir to the northeast, has raised fears the popular device made by Research in Motion (RIM) could be used by terrorists to communicate.
RIM said it had held talks with the Indian government over encryption in its BlackBerries and wished to “assure customers” that it was committed to “serving security-conscious businesses in the Indian market with highly secure” products that “satisfy the needs of both business and government.”
“Governments have a wide range of resources and methodologies to satisfy national security and law enforcement needs without compromising commercial security requirements,” RIM said in a statement yesterday.
US seminar in Taichung
The commercial section of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) will join the American State Office Association (ASOA) and the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) in holding a seminar in Taichung focusing on US trade and investment opportunities on May 29, an AIT press release said yesterday.
“We would like to cordially invite firms in the Taichung area that are interested in exploring investment in the US to attend the event,” the press release said.
The seminar is free of charge and people can contact ASOA specialist Bonny Yu at bonny@idahoasia.org to register.
NT dollar loses ground
The NT dollar lost ground against the US currency owing to foreign capital outflows and closed NT$0.033 lower at NT$30.540 on the Taipei Forex Inc yesterday.
A total of US$911 million changed hands during the day’s trading.
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