BEIJING: China’s fiscal revenue grew at its slowest speed in first two months of 2015 due to slowing economy and cut in tax collection.
Fiscal revenue rose 3.2 percent year on year to 2.57 trillion yuan (US$410 million) in the first two months, compared with an 11.1 percent increase a year earlier and an average gain of 8.6 percent in 2014, the Ministry of Finance said on its website yesterday.
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Personal income tax receipts fell 7.1 percent year on year to 164.6 billion yuan.
Value-added tax collection rose 2.2 percent to 535.7 billion yuan, compared with an 8.9 percent gain in the same period a year ago, due to lower factory gate prices and VAT reform.
Tariffs also fell 5.3 percent after the lower prices of crude oil, iron ore and commodities cut the value of imports.
A sluggish housing market hit government revenue from land sales, which dived 36.2 percent to 455.3 billion yuan. The ministry didn’t disclose the change in land sales income last year.
“The macro-economic situation was facing severe pressure than expected as suggested by rare declines in personal income tax and tariffs,” said associate professor Chen Yuyu at Guanghua School of Management at Peking University.
The government’s fiscal spending rose 10.5 percent to 1.89 trillion yuan, compared with a 6 percent gain over the same period of last year.
