PERSONAL INCOME TAX AND CORPORATE TAXES (Particulars)

Dr Lee Siew-Choh asked the Minister for Finance (a) what proportion of the total Singapore budget revenue is represented by amounts collected in personal income tax and amounts collected in corporate taxes for the last 12 years; and (b) whether he will publish such information in the annual reports of the Inland Reveneue Department in future.

BG George Yong-Boon Yeo (for the Minister for Finance): Mr Speaker, Sir, I can only provide the information requested for FY 86 and FY 87. In earlier years, tax collection data was only broken down into major tax categories such as income tax, property tax, stamp duty, etc. Further breakdown into sub-categories would require data extraction manually and I do not propose to do so as it is time-consuming and costly, unless Dr Lee has a specific reason for wanting the data.

In FY 86, personal income tax and corporate income tax collected were $852 million and $1,321 million respectively, and they accounted for 8% and 13% respectively of total Government revenue in that year.

In FY 87, the corresponding figures were $962 million and $1,487 million, or 7% and 12% respectively.

The Finance Ministry will arrange for such information to be published in the Annual Report of the Inland Revenue Department in the future.