Tax income boosts Crown's budget

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Friday 8th March 2002

The government has posted a surplus of $1.49 billion for the seven months ended January, $385 million higher than forecast due to a combination of increased tax revenue and lower expenses.

Total revenue for the period was $248 million higher than forecast and included increased income from provisional tax and tax at source.

Customs duty was $29 million higher than expected, mainly due to higher contributions from imported alcohol, tobacco and fuel.

Treasury says total expenses for the period were $52 million lower than forecast including $52 million less from social security and welfare expenses, $43 million from health expenses, $23 million from defence and $19 million from law.

However these have been partially offset by net foreign-exchange losses which were $80 million more than forecast. There was also a $50 million jump in budgeted education expenses.

"This primarily related to student loan provisioning. It is also expected that most of this variance will reverse in the coming months," Treasury says.

The government accounts were also helped by the SOEs and Crown entities net surplus which was $85 million more than expected, including higher than forecast investment returns from ACC.

Net Crown debt at the end of January was $21 billion or 18.1% of GDP, an improvement on the forecast level of 18.4%.

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