Tax revenue last month decreased by 5.3 percent from a year earlier to NT$808.3 billion (US$24.9 billion), shrinking for the second straight month, as the retreat in corporate income tax revenues outpaced revenue gains from personal income and securities transaction taxes, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Revenue from corporate income tax totaled NT$357 billion, reflecting a 19.4 percent fall valued at NT$86.2 billion, as non-tech sectors continued to get hit by a global slowdown, ministry statistician Liu Shun-rong (劉訓蓉) said.
The drop is bigger than the combined revenue increases from personal income and securities transaction taxes, which grew by NT$28.4 billion and NT$7.9 billion to NT$344.4 billion and NT$27.6 billion respectively, he said.
Photo: Clare Cheng, Taipei Times
Liu attributed increases in personal income tax revenue to higher interest income, earnings and gains from property transfers.
The rise in securities transaction tax revenue was clearly due to the TAIEX’s 8.8 percent rally, despite some corrections toward the end of the month, as well as a 40.2 percent spike in daily turnover to NT$561.5 billion, Liu said.
The impressive showings had much to do with the participation of Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) in technology trade show Computex Taipei and price hikes by chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電).
Revenue from land value increment tax amounted to NT$7 billion, suggesting a 5.8 percent growth from a year earlier, as housing continued to benefit from the government’s subsidy for first-home purchases and the wealth effect inflated by TAIEX rallies, Liu said.
Cumulative tax revenues expanded 2 percent to NT$2.1 trillion in the first six months from a year earlier and continued to be ahead of the ministry’s budget by 11.1 percent, the official said.
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