Last update - 00:00 04/12/2007
Finance Ministry announces budget surplus of NIS 7.7 billion for 2007
By Motti Bassok, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
The Finance Ministry published statistics Tuesday indicating that the government has a budget surplus of NIS 7.7 billion for first 11 months of 2007. The reason for the surplus was higher revenue than expected and low expenses. In the corresponding period last year, the government budget's surplus stood only at NIS 2.3 billion.
The surplus will be most likely used for decreasing the state's debts. In February of this year, the government already had a surplus of NIS 5.4 billion, and in the first trimester the amount had reached NIS 7.1 billion.
From the beginning of 2007, expenditure from government offices reached NIS 160.6 billion, as opposed to the NIS 152.9 billion during the same period in 2006, signaling an increase of 5 percent.
In the 2007 state budget, the state allocated a minimum increase of 6.6 percent in government offices' expenditure as opposed to the allocated budget in 2006. In other words, the government offices' expenses were much lower than planned.
Government offices have currently used only 87.9 percent of their yearly budget, while tax revenue stood at 98.1 percent of the expected revenue. Since the beginning of the year, the Tax Authority reported a NIS 11 billion surplus in tax collection with regard to the original budget plan. Between January and November of 2007, the Tax Authority reported an overall revenue of NIS 171.6 billion as opposed to last year's NIS 161 billion in the same period.