S. Korea's tax revenue nears target on economic recovery

SEOUL, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's tax revenue neared its annual target for the first 10 months of this year as economic recovery led to larger-than-expected taxes, a government report showed Tuesday.

National tax revenue amounted to 236.9 trillion won (217 billion U.S. dollars) in the January-October period, bigger than 215.7 trillion won collected in the same period of last year, according to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.

The figure was equivalent to 94.4 percent of this year's tax revenue target of 251.1 trillion won (230 billion U.S. dollars), nearing the annual target. It was 1.7 percentage points higher than the same period of last year.

During the January-October period, value-added tax revenue increased 5.6 trillion won over the year to 65.8 trillion won (60 billion U.S. dollars), surpassing this year's target of 62.6 trillion won. It was attributable to recovering private consumption.

Income tax revenue rose 5 trillion won to 50.4 trillion won (46 billion U.S. dollars), making up 86.7 percent of the annual target.

Corporate tax revenue was 56.7 trillion won (52 billion U.S. dollars) in the cited period, accounting for 99 percent of the target number. Enditem