Tax revenue last month surged 73.7 percent year-on-year to a record NT$853.4 billion (US$27.25 billion), likely due to special circumstances, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Corporate income tax revenue rose 22.6 percent year-on-year to NT$443.1 billion last month, while personal income tax revenue grew more than 6.3-fold to NT$316 billion, ministry statistics official Liang Kuan-shuan (梁冠璇) told an online news briefing.
Liang said the steep advance had much to do with the lingering benefits of income tax declarations by companies and individuals, while the ministry last year had granted a one-month moratorium to accommodate issues related to COVID-19.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Declining to speculate on whether the uptrend would continue, she said that export-oriented firms are being affected by an ongoing global slowdown, while government and private research bodies are trimming GDP growth for this year.
Securities transaction tax revenue grew 27.9 percent for the second straight month to NT$19.7 billion last month, as local tech stocks rode investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI), she said.
The AI craze lifted daily turnover on the local exchange by 31.4 percent to NT$36.9 billion in the month, Liang said.
However, it remains to be seen if the rally would continue amid global economic uncertainty, she said.
Land value incremental tax revenue, a critical gauge of property transactions, was NT$6.7 billion last month, a 16.9 percent retreat from a year earlier, as the number of taxable transfers shrank 4.6 percent to 43,114, she said.
While transactions in Taipei and Hsinchu County returned to positive territory and recent signs indicate a slower decline in property transactions, more observation is necessary to speculate on a market recovery, she said.
Tax revenue in the first half of this year rose 49.2 percent year-on-year to NT$2.94 trillion, ahead of the budget schedule of 42.2 percent, the ministry said.
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