Government is doing very well so far for this fiscal year. They collected a billion dollars more for the month of May, while the deficit for April came in less than $1.5 billion originally reported. The April deficit has now dropped to $884 million in the latest report from the Ministry of Finance.
The original deficit for April was projected at $3.5 billion making the actual out turn far better than planned as spending on interest cost was down amongst other areas of expenditure. The latest data released for May shows that revenues that were initially reported to be on par with budget when the April figures were first released is now up by $620 million more than planned. The April out turn for revenues is up by 11.7 percent and May is 13 percent up over intake for the same months last year.
The data for May show that taxes on local production & consumption climbed by a massive 19.44 percent or $1.75 billion above plan. However, the $1.2 billion increase in expenditure came from $1 billion more spent on interest payment, $400 million saved on wages and $600 million more spent on programmes.
The improved revenue in May was aided by a near billion dollar increase in special consumption tax on locally produced goods, improvement in motor vehicle license, accommodation, telephone taxes, $500 million improvement in local GCT, $300 million more each in stamp duty and travel taxes, offset by poorer performance in special consumption taxes for imports amounting to $540 million, $700 million drop in PAYE and $200 million in education tax. Company profit taxes performed better in April and May that budgeted.
The year-to-date deficit is provisionally put at $4.1 billion or $2.3 billion better than forecast.
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