Germany's tax revenue rose sharply in March from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said in an upbeat assessment of the first quarter today.
Total tax revenue rose by 9.7 per cent in March from a year earlier; federal tax income in the month was 11.7 per cent higher, the ministry said in its monthly report for April. The intake of corporate tax increased by 32.2 per cent.
The ministry commented that economic indicators suggested gross domestic product had risen strongly in the first quarter. However, it was less upbeat about the prospects for subsequent months given low or declining confidence.
"The sentiment of industrial firms has increasingly worsened lately and indicates that the marked economic recovery could be more limited to the first quarter, that further economic development could turn out less positively," the ministry said. Value-added tax receipts rose by 12.7 per cent.
However, the income from a tax on imports, levied on goods arriving from outside the European Union dropped sharply, due to the bloc's eastward expansion in May 2004.
This led to an overall rise of sales tax by a more modest 1.7 per cent. Income tax receipts fell by 2.2 per cent.