April surplus trims 4-month deficit to P29.7-B

MANILA, Philippines – The government posted a budget deficit of P29.675 billion in the first 4 months of the year, far below the P41 billion cap for the January-to-April period.

On Monday, May 27, the finance department released the fiscal data on April — a budget surplus of P36.803 billion, exceeding the P32.8 billion target for the month and the highest recorded for April, a tax payment season.

The April performance trimmed the higher-than-target P66.478 billion budget deficit incurred in the first quarter.

Below is a summary of the revenues and spending in the past 4 months:

Revenue collections reached P190 billion in April, 2% or P3 billion higher than the target.

The revenue collecting agencies performed as follows:

• Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) collected P149 billion, a 28% growth from a year ago and exceeded the P145.8 billion target
• Bureau of Customs (BOC) raised P27.1 billion, 7% higher but P2.2 billion below target
• Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) raised P6.3 billion, up 54% and P4.6 billion more than the target
• ‘Other offices’ raised P7.6 billion, more than the P7.2 target

Tax revenues totaled P177.3 billion, representing 93% of total revenues. The remaining P12.7 billion came from non-tax sources.

Actual disbursements for April amounted to P153.2 billion, a 25.3% increase year-on-year.

Interest payments of P23.7 billion accounted for 15.5% of total expenditures for the month.

Total disbursements for January to April amounted to P584 billion, 12.9% more than the same period in 2012. – research and graphs by Ramon Calzado/Rappler.com