Tax Department Reveals Collections Have Soared In Cambodia
Tax collections rose to $768 million in the first quarter of this year, a 92 percent rise on the same period last year.
General Department of Taxation director-general Kong Vibol told a meeting chaired by Finance Minister Aun Pornmoniroth yesterday that the collection figure was a source of pride. Last month alone, his department collected 1.66 billion riel ($417 million) from all tax streams. The first-quarter tax take accounted for 44.8 percent of the plan set out in the Finance Act.
“Compared with the same period of 2016, the implementation of all kinds of tax collection for the first quarter of 2017 increased $368 million, or 92.2 percent,” said Vibol. In the first quarter of 2017, the department noticed an increase in tax revenues – value added tax and a number of key business activities, according to Vibol.
“The income tax grew by 40.6 percent, the salary tax increased 49.4 percent, value-added tax increased 80.7 percent and the special tax increased by 17.1 percent,” he said.
Minister Pornmoniroth said the tax revenue on business activities has been increasing in almost all types of businesses, especially the automotive sector, agriculture, research and mining sector, and the education sector and so on,” said , who said he hoped that the tax collected this year will produce better results based on the first quarter.
The government laid out its plans to the department to collect $1.7 billion in income tax under the Law of the National Budget. Next year the plan is to collect between $1.9 billion and $2 billion. According to the general department of taxation, tax revenue in 2016 was about $1.49 billion, an increase of 14.94 percent over 2015.