The government last month collected NT$349.8 billion (US$10.79 billion) of tax revenue, soaring 50.9 percent from a year earlier, helped by solid gains in corporate and personal income as well as securities transactions taxes, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Revenue from corporate income tax surged 73.2 percent year-on-year to NT$241.2 billion, as major local technology companies posted big increases in shipments of electronics used in artificial intelligence, ministry statistics official Liang Kuan-hsuan (梁冠璇) told a news conference in Taipei.
The significant rise in corporate income tax revenue was also due to a low comparison base from a year earlier, when temporary tax payment measures were suspended, Liang said.
Photo: Clare Cheng, Taipei Times
Revenue from personal income tax rose 15.8 percent to NT$46.7 billion, as people received higher cash dividends from their investments in listed firms and from transfers of real-estate properties, she said.
The central bank’s credit controls in September prompted some investors to exit the housing market to avoid potential price corrections, she said.
As a result, revenue from the land value increase tax was NT$7 billion, a 22.1 percent increase from a year earlier, the ministry’s report said.
The tax is paid when people resell houses.
Revenue from securities transactions rose 38.3 percent year-on-year to NT$431.1 billion as investors benefited from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (台積電) strong third-quarter earnings and positive outlook ahead of last week’s US presidential election, Liang said.
In the first 10 months, cumulative tax revenues rose 9 percent year-on-year to NT$3.3 trillion and already met the target set for the whole of this year, she said.
Overall excess tax revenue could reach NT$400 billion at the end of this year, she added.
Policymakers tend to be conservative when preparing the revenue budget to avoid a shortfall.
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