While tax revenues increased 9.8 percent year-on-year to NT$1.067 trillion (US$36.8 billion) in the first seven months of the year, full-year revenues might not recover to the same levels before the global financial tsunami in 2008.
“The Ministry of Finance is optimistic full-year tax revenues will reach the government’s target of NT$1.695 trillion,” said Hsu Ray-lin (許瑞琳), deputy director of the ministry’s statistics department, while reporting that last month’s tax revenues dropped 5.3 percent from a year earlier to NT$69.7 billion.
He refused to comment when asked if tax revenues could reach NT$1.76 trillion, the tax revenue for all of 2008, indicating that this year’s tax revenues might not return to pre-recession levels.
Hsu attributed the growth in the first seven months of the year to a pick-up in revenue from business sales, corporate and personal income and commodity taxes.
Business sales tax revenue increased 5.2 percent to NT$185.6 billion in the first seven months, marking the highest level in history, amid strong imports and private consumption, the ministry said in a statement.
Revenues from the select goods and services sales tax, also known as the luxury tax, were not included in the tax data, but Hsu said the ministry views the luxury tax as a kind of fund and would put it on the list after amending related administrative rules.
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