Stamp Tax Revenue Grows 34% in the First Half

The nation's stamp tax revenue has grown more than 30 percent year-on-year despite April's tax cut to spur stock trading, the State Administration of Taxation said on Tuesday.

According to the administration, the nation's tax revenue totaled 3.26 trillion yuan ($472 billion) in the first half of this year, up 760.6 billion yuan or 30.5 percent over the same period of last year. Included in the huge sum was stamp tax imposed on domestic securities trading, which grew 34.2 percent to 83.7 billion yuan.

The government slashed the stamp tax in April of this year from 0.3 percent to 0.1 percent. The move was believed to boost investor's confidence and market participation in the declining market.

However, other statistics from the China Securities Journal show that in the first six months, total turnover of domestic A-share markets shrank nearly 30 percent year-on-year due to waning trading enthusiasm. Therefore, the increase in stamp tax revenue during the first half can be mainly attributed to trading in the first four months, when the tax rate was 0.2 percentage points higher.