According to data released by the Ministry of Finance, the national general public budget revenue totaled 17.26 trillion yuan ($2.7 trillion), up 7.4 percent year-on-year, Guangming Daily reported on Jan 26.

Fiscal revenue continues optimization

Lou Hong, head of the fiscal department at the Ministry of Finance, said that fiscal revenue has been gaining speed, highlighting a 10.7 percent year-on-year gain in tax revenue, which demonstrates considerable progress made in economic restructuring and upgrading growth drivers.

Last year, the secondary and tertiary industries made the most contributions to the total sum of tax revenue, showing a further optimized tax revenue generating system led by the reinvigorated real economy.

Additionally, advanced manufacturing sectors and modern service industry witnessed a momentous rise in tax revenue, mirroring the great development in upgrading economic drivers.

The national general public budget expenditures reached 20.33 trillion yuan, with a 7.8 percent year-on-year increase in expenses on education; 6.4 percent on activities related to culture, sports and media; 16 percent on social insurance and employment; and 9.3 percent on medication.

Wang Kebing, vice-director of the budget department at the Ministry of Finance, said that financial authorities at all levels have been cutting down on general expenditures while pushing forward supply-side structural reform and the implementation of significant strategic projects with increasing exactitude.

Fiscal revenue retains rapid increase despite cuts on tax and fees

Although the measures of cutting fees and taxes have reduced burdens for enterprises of 1 trillion yuan last year, China’s fiscal revenue has continued rapid growth, according to the national fiscal work conference held a few days ago.

China’s gross domestic product increased 6.9 percent year-on-year, 0.2 percentage points higher than the previous year, said Lou Hong.

The stable and well-developed macroeconomy - marked by rising industrial production and the services sector, optimized investment structure, and increasing export and import trade - provided sound and stable tax sources, he added.

In addition, prices of industrial products grew rapidly, which led to a relatively fast increase in revenue of value added taxes and corporate income taxes, Lou said.

In 2017, newly registered enterprises in China increased 9.9 percent year-on-year. That same year, business revenue in strategic emerging services rose 18 percent, while revenues in production services and technological services went up 15 percent and 15.1 percent, respectively. In addition, industrial robot and new energy vehicle output increased 68.1 percent and 51.1 percent.

All these have demonstrated that the entrepreneurship and innovation movement and administrative reform have yielded results, stimulated market vitality and shored up the government’s tax base, Lou said.

Fiscal revenue will remain on the rise in 2018

China will see healthy economic development in 2018, which will bolster the fiscal revenue increase, said Lou. However, challenges still exist in some regions.

Yuan Haiyao, an inspector with the Ministry of Finance, said due to China’s tax and fee reduction efforts, from January to November, 716.2 billion yuan in tax reductions has been achieved across all sectors.

Referring to certain taxpayers seeing more tax payment than before, owing to the unique deduction approach of VAT and changes in the cost structure and investment cycle, Yuan said the financial authorities will look into this issue and improve the pilot policy.