"Hungary’s revenues from VAT and excise tax came in larger than expected, while corporate tax revenues fell short of the target in December, Finance Minister Péter Oszkó told local daily Népszabadság on Wednesday. Hungary posted a budget surplus of HUF 202 bn in the last month of 2009, some HUF 70 bn bigger than projected (HUF 135 bn), thus correcting the serious overshoot by end-Nov and meeting the full-year objective.Oszkó told local newswire MTI that although the full cash flow deficit number is still not available (local government data will be added later), the country most likely met its 3.9% of GDP accrual-based goal, as the cash flow based deficit (excluding local governments) came in at 3.6%, 0.2 percentage points lower than projected. Final cash flow and ESA figures will be available in a few weeks.
Oszkó told the paper even the Finance Ministry is trying to figure out why exactly VAT revenues surprised on the upside in December.
While autumn retail statistics did not provide any hint that VAT revenues would leap unexpectedly, the stockpiling of excise stamps could have easily caused extra revenues.
Oszkó said corporate tax revenues fell short of the HFU 418 bn target by HUF 33 bn, but tax revenues in total were some HUF 20-30 bn larger than the estimate. As the December surplus was HUF 70 bigger than forecasted, the difference between the two can be attributed to lower-than-expected spending."
Source: Portfolio Online Financial Journal
07.01.2010