China's October fiscal revenue rises 16.9%

China's national fiscal revenue rose 16.9 percent in October from a year earlier to 918.83 billion yuan (145.38 billion U.S. dollars), the Ministry of Finance said on Wednesday. The annual growth rate was a pullback from 17.3 percent in September, 34.3 percent in August and 26.7 percent in July. The slower growth was due to a combination of various factors such as the moderation in the national economic growth, changes in personal income taxation and a decline in property transactions, the ministry said. The ministry projected growth of the country's fiscal revenue to continue slowing in the coming months. The October data brought the country's fiscal revenue for the first 10 months to 9.09 trillion yuan, up 28.1 percent year-on-year, according to the ministry. Of the January-October fiscal revenue, 7.96 trillion yuan was collected in taxes, a year-on-year growth of 26.6 percent. In October, the country's value-added tax (VAT) revenue climbed 7.6 percent year-on-year to 199.66 billion yuan, but the growth rate was sharply down from September's 17.5-percent increase. Revenue from personal income tax fell 3.1 percent from a year earlier to 35.24 billion yuan last month after amended rules on personal income tax took effect Sept. 1. This came after an annual increase of 27.2 percent in September and 32.6 percent in August. On a monthly basis, personal income tax revenue dropped 22 percent in October. The new rules raised the monthly tax exemption threshold from 2,000 yuan to 3,500 yuan and reduced the previous nine-category progressive mechanism to a less-segmented seven-rank system, with tax rates ranging from 3 to 45 percent. The country's fiscal expenditure grew 27.2 percent to 7.76 trillion yuan in the first 10 months. In October alone, fiscal expenditure reached 807.9 billion yuan, up 24.5 percent compared with October of last year.