ATHENS: Tax revenues missed their budget target for the first four months of the year by 207 million euros, Finance Ministry figures showed on Friday, but the major decrease in state expenditure, by almost 2.3 billion compared to the target, led to an excessive primary surplus in the year to end-April: Against a target for a primary surplus of 2.1 billion euros, it amounted to 2.7 billion.
While there were higher-than-expected revenues from categories such as direct taxes from previous years (162 million euros more) and indirect taxes from previous years (163 million euros more), a host of revenue categories underperformed in the period from January to April.
Data showed a shortfall in income tax revenues (by 127 million euros), property tax takings (101 million), value-added tax on fuel (121 million), VAT on tobacco (10 million), other VAT categories (17 million), the special consumption tax on energy commodities (62 million), other special consumption tax revenues, such as on tobacco (72 million), and other indirect taxes (35 million euros). The revenues of the Public Investment Program came in 470 million euros below target, totaling 1.9 billion.
The containment of spending by 2.3 billion euros mostly came from primary spending (1.8 billion), while the expenditure of the Public Investment Program was 201 million euros below target.
