The first quarter tax revenue was 75 billion yuan more than in the same period of last year, compared with a year-on-year growth of 60.9 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2000.

A SAT official said Monday that the steady growth of taxation was due to economic growth and stricter measures against tax evasion.

However, he advised against too much optimism over the prospect of taxation growth, saying that the country should be fully prepared for the impact that fluctuations in the global economy will have on China.

Import taxes and print taxes contributed much less to revenue growth than they did a year ago due to slowing growth of foreign trade and the dropping stock market.

According to SAT, revenue of taxes on imported goods grew 5.6 billion yuan in the first quarter, compared with the growth of 10 billion yuan in the same period of last year. The import tax growth accounted for only 7.5 percent of the total increase of tax revenue, less than half of the ratio of 16.5 percent one year ago.

SAT said the country gave a total of 24.2 billion yuan worth of tax rebates to goods exported to other areas of the world during January to March, which was 7.25 billion yuan, or 42.8 percent more than in the same period of last year.

Print taxes on securities transactions decreased by 7.6 billion yuan in the first quarter, according to SAT.

At the same time, taxes on industrial outputs and consumption grew by 30.7 billion yuan. Income taxes of corporate and individuals grew by 29.3 billion yuan.

(Xinhua 04/09/2001)