ATHENS: The implementation of budget of Greece in the period January-October 2016 surprised with higher than expected revenues. The data show that for the reported period into the Treasury entered 42.09 billion EUR, which is 2.2% more than the initially planned by the government. For the ten months in 2016, the budget of Greece recorded a primary surplus of 6.5 billion EUR. For the same period last year, the surplus was 4.53 billion EUR.
The growth is mainly due to the larger tax revenues. The taxes on personal income the generated revenues are 1.2% higher, while revenue from corporate taxes rose by 11.8%. The revenues from value added tax (VAT) on tobacco products grew by 3.2%, while overall VAT revenues were 1.3% higher.
However, revenues from property taxes are less than expected. There is failure in terms of objectives in the taxation of energy products. The discrepancy between the estimates and the proceeds on two items is about 1%.
The government spending were also lower than expected. For the first 10 months of the year Greek government spent 41.4 billion EUR, which is 1.98 billion EUR less than planned. Also the cost of government investment program were reduced to 2.99 billion EUR, which is 860 billion EUR less than initially planned.
In October, the budget revenues Greece reached 4.98 billion EUR, which is 938 billion EUR more than expected. The costs reach 4.26 billion EUR, which is 112 million EUR less than planned.