Big hole in Sept tax revenues
Tax revenues in the first nine months of the year missed their budget target by 5.45 billion euros or 14.9%, coming to €31.032 billion, official figures showed on Thursday. Even compared to the adjusted target of last April’s Stability Program, tax revenues were still off by €1.13 billion.
A large part of the shortfall arose last month, when tax revenues amounted to €3.942 billion, €1.9 billion below the budget target and €1.4 billion below the adjusted projections.
According to the Finance Ministry’s announcement yesterday, this lag in September was mainly due to the reduction of the corporate income tax deposit, the changes to the income tax installments, and the extension of the deadline for the first tranche of the Single Property Tax (ENFIA). The ministry has calculated that these factors added up to €1.6 billion of the shortfall in tax revenues.
Based on the above, Alternate Minister Thodoris Skylakakis stated the ministry is not worried about meeting the adjusted target, saying the course of revenues in August and so far in October shows they are sufficient.
