October: Budget deficit of NIS 3.1 billion - in the past 12 months surplus reduced to 0.5% of GDP

In October, a budget deficit of approximately 3.1 billion shekels was measured, and the cumulative budget surplus in the last 12 months is reduced to 0.5% of GDP (approximately 8 billion shekels). This is according to data released today (Thursday) by the Accountant General of the Ministry of Finance, CPA Yali Rotenberg. According to the Ministry of Finance, the reason for the decrease in the annual budget surplus is also due to the postponement of tax collection estimated at 8.2 billion shekels from September 2021 to October 2021 due to the holidays.
The accumulated surplus since the beginning of the year has dropped to the amount of NIS 30.1 billion - still unprecedented since the state has never been in a situation where after ten months there is a surplus of funds in the state budget.
Since the beginning of the year there have already been six months with a budget surplus, a phenomenon that did not occur until 2022. At the same time, it should be mentioned that these are revenue surpluses for the current year, but the State of Israel has a debt of more than a trillion shekels on which it pays over 40 billion shekels in interest payments every year Just keep growing.
Since the beginning of the year, the state's revenues have already amounted to 393 billion shekels, compared to 336 billion shekels in 2021, when at the beginning of that year there was still the third lockdown resulting from the spread of the corona virus. This is a very significant increase of 16.9% in the collection of state revenues during this period this year.
It also turns out that in October an expense of NIS 5.1 billion was recorded for the settlement of the old pension funds. The arrangement was enacted back in 2003, when Binyamin Netanyahu was Minister of Finance, as part of the plan to revive the old deficit pension funds and this for the purpose of actuarial balance.
The data also shows that total government expenditures in October reached NIS 41.5 billion. Government revenues in October amounted to NIS 38.3 billion. Tax revenues totaled NIS 33.1 billion, of which NIS 19.4 billion came from direct taxes (income tax and real estate) and NIS 13 billion from indirect taxes (VAT, customs, purchase taxes). The income from fees amounted to NIS 0.6 billion, and other revenues added another NIS 5.3 billion to the state coffers.
Government expenditures from the beginning of 2022 reached NIS 363.2 billion, of which NIS 6.4 billion resulted from expenditures for the economic aid program to deal with the Corona crisis. Excluding the expenses of the economic aid program, this is an increase of 6.2% - a continuation of the trend of growth in recent months. It should be noted that the cumulative performance of the economic aid program for the Corona crisis reached NIS 178.8 billion.