《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Ministry of Finance says tax revenue rose by 5.7%

By Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

The national treasury collected NT$293.2 billion （US$9.37 billion） in tax revenue last month, up 5.7 percent from a year earlier as gains in corporate and individual income taxes more than compensated for losses in securities transaction and land gain taxes, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.

請繼續往下閱讀...

Business income taxes rose 15.2 percent year-on-year to NT$77.6 billion last month, while personal income taxes grew 16.5 percent to NT$44.5 billion, the ministry’s monthly report showed.

The ministry attributed the increase to better earnings results on the part of companies and wage gains for their employees last year. Both companies and individuals have to pay income taxes in May for earnings from the previous year.

BUSINESS TAXES

Business taxes reached NT$61.1 billion last month, representing a 3.7 percent pickup from a year earlier on the back of active domestic demand even though cheaper oil prices dampened import costs, the report said.

However, taxes from land transaction gains contracted 20.8 percent annually to NT$7.5 billion last month, due to sluggish trading, the report said.

PROPERTY

All real-estate property deals are subject to land taxes upon transactions if their land value increased from previous deals.

The number of property deals dropped 14.4 percent to 55,547 last month, down 14.4 percent from a year earlier, the report said.

Securities transaction taxes also fell 5.9 percent to NT$7 billion last month, as average daily turnovers showed a modest decline from the year-ago levels, the report said.

For the first five months of the year, cumulative tax revenue picked up 5.8 percent to NT$749.2 billion, which is the highest level for the January-to-May period in decades, the report said.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES