November worse month for revenues

November 2013 was the worse month for Government of Jamaica revenue collections for the current fiscal year which started in April, coming in at $25.94 billion. The next lowest was August at $26.36 billion and October at $26.5 billion. The November collections were $2 billion short of the estimate of $28.55 billion forecasted by the Ministry of Finance when it presented the budget earlier in the year.

The shortfall in August was the worse reported as it was down by $6 billion compared to forecast. The best month was May which exceeded forecast by a billion dollars, all other months were short of budget. The data is reflecting a troubling trend of a likely shortfall going forward.

The reduction in the fiscal deficit that was at $9 billion at the end of October has been sharply cut and now stands at only $5.1 billion as the deficit for November that was planned at $1.3 billion hit $5.4 billion instead. Expenditure planned at $29.8 billion for the month ended at $31.3 billion instead, as payments on wages and programmes, climbed above the budgeted figures by $3.6 billion, to compound the impact of the revenue shortfall. The fiscal deficit sits at $24.9 billion versus $30 billion originally projected to November. Total revenues, which are $233 billion is up by a strong 10.6 percent over the 2012 period of $211 billion but is down by roughly nearly 3.5 percentage points. The budget called for an 18 percent rise in revenues for the fiscal year over that of 2013 to reach $407 billion with revenues to have risen by 14 percent up to November.

The number of areas with improved revenues paled in comparison to those that under-performed as tax revenues fell short of forecast by $10.4 billion, partially offset by increased grants of $1.1 billion and non-tax revenues of $1.37 billion. Corporation Taxes delivered $1.1 billion more than planned by 8 percent; others to have performed ahead of forecast are Special Consumption Taxes by 7 percent with a surplus of $550 million; Motor Vehicle licenses 12.6 percent with a surplus of $191 million; Telephone Call Tax, 6 percent better with $246 million; Accommodation Tax up by $400 million or a huge 55 percent improvement and Travel Tax with an increase of 57 percent or $2.3 billion.

The underperformers overwhelmed the good performances with PAYE dropping $2.45 billion; tax on dividend, individuals and on interest falling by $2.5 billion; betting gaming was down $842 million; education tax by $935 million; Contractor’s levy by $305 million; Stamp Duty by $700 million and taxes on imported items by $7.7 billion as imports fell during the period.