China's personal income tax revenue in the first 10 months this year totaled 119.24 billion yuan (US$14.4 billion), up 19.3 percent over the same period of last y ear, the Economic Daily reported on Tuesday.

According to the State Administration of Taxation, the personal income tax revenue has been on a sharp rise in China, surging from 4.68 billion yuan in 1993 to 121.1 billion yuan in 2002. It has become one of the fastest-expanding tax categories in China.

The taxation departments in China this year intensified tax-collecting methods towards individual investors, in a bid to curb any form of tax evasion, the paper said.

The State Administration of Taxation has also started to develop a nationwide managing system especially for collecting personal income tax, the paper said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 25, 2003)