Large tax refunds pushed business income tax revenues into the negative for the first four months of the year for the first time in history, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
National tax revenue surged 4.4 percent from a year earlier to NT$431 billion (US$14.28 billion) in the first four months of the year — marking the highest level for the period since 2001 — following last month’s tax revenue decline of 4.6 percent year-on-year to NT$96.9 billion, the ministry said in its monthly report.
Strong revenue from the securities transaction tax, consolidated income tax and land value increment tax were the major factors leading to the 4.4 percent year-on-year growth in tax revenue for the first four months, the report said.
Revenue from the securities transaction tax totaled NT$28.7 billion in the first four months, up 37.2 percent from a year earlier, marking the biggest increase among the major taxes, data showed.
However, business income tax revenue posted a minus-NT$900 million in the first four months on the impact of the tax refund, the report added.
Nonetheless, the ministry was optimistic that national tax revenue would achieve its target of NT$1.866 trillion this year.
“Overall, we have to wait for the declaration of consolidated income tax for this and next month to get a clearer picture of the outlook of tax revenues this year,” Statistics Department Deputy Director Hsu Ray-lin (許瑞琳) told a press conference yesterday.
Most workers in Taiwan have to pay their consolidated income tax in May every year. For the first four months of the year, revenue from consolidated income tax rose 5.2 percent to NT$91.8 billion, the ministry said.
Earlier this month, the legislature’s Finance Committee completed a review of tax legislation that could increase government tax revenue by NT$65 billion as part of a broader plan for tax reforms, Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) said.
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