The Ministry of Finance yesterday said that it collected NT$472.5 billion (US$16 billion) in tax revenue last month, more than three times the amount it collected a year earlier due mainly to a month-long moratorium on personal and corporate income tax filings.
The government allowed individuals and companies to file their income tax from May to June this year because of COVID-19.
As a result, personal income tax revenue spiked to NT$194.4 billion, from NT$10.8 billion a year earlier, while corporate income tax revenue increased to NT$129.7 billion, from NT$2.6 billion, Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Chen Yu-feng (陳玉豐) said.
Cumulatively, personal income tax revenue increased by a modest 2.7 percent in the first seven months, while corporate income tax revenue fell 29.3 percent, dragged down by profit declines among listed firms and a tax cut from 10 percent to 5 percent on their retained earnings, the ministry said.
The virus outbreak has been taking a toll on non-tech product makers and service providers heavily reliant on cross-border tourism, even though Taiwan did not report any local COVID-19 infections in May.
Securities transaction tax revenue was NT$17.6 billion, surging 89.4 percent from a year earlier as daily stock turnover grew more than twofold to NT$288.4 billion, Chen said.
For the first seven months, tax revenue from securities transactions grew 59 percent to NT$78.6 billion, as local tech companies benefited from 5G network deployment and remote working arrangements.
Property tax revenue increased 13.1 percent to NT$9.9 billion, supported by a recovery in housing transactions, the ministry said.
From January to last month, the number of property transactions totaled 345,553, a mild 2.1 percent drop from a year earlier, it said.
As of last month, overall tax revenue totaled NT$1.44 trillion, dropping 5 percent from a year earlier and slightly behind the budget schedule, the ministry said.
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last