MANILA – The national government’s budget deficit increased at a snail’s pace in February as public spending unchanged on the back of lower collections of the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR).
Data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed Monday, April 3, that the national government’s fiscal deficit inched up 0.54 percent to P106.4 billion in February from P105.8 billion in the same month last year.
The marginal rise was caused by the Marcos administration’s steady expenditures.
Government spending was flat at P318.2 billion in February compared with the previous year’s. Of that amount, interest payments jumped 21 percent to P34.1 billion from P28.2 billion.
Other expenditures, on the other hand, declined two percent to P284.1 billion.
The treasury explained that growth of disbursements was dampened by the decline of the national tax allotment (NTA) shares of local government units due to lower national tax collections amid pandemic in 2020.
According to the Treasury, 2020 tax collection was the base year for the determination of the 2023 shares.
Netting out the NTA, spending in February expanded by 4.9 percent, driven by higher disbursements to the Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Health, as well as State Universities and Colleges.
Revenues, meanwhile, dropped slightly by 0.25 percent to P211.9 billion from P212.4 billion a year earlier.
The BIR, the government’s largest tax agency, collected P129.4 billion, down three percent compared with P136.6 billion a year before..
The Bureau of Customs, however, registered a five percent increase in collection to P62.9 billion from P59.4 billion last year.
The Treasury reported that other tax offices reported zero revenues in February, a reversal of the P14.1 billion income in the same month of 2022.
The government’s non-tax revenues, meanwhile, rose 38 percent to P19.6 billion from P14.1 billion in February 2022.
In the first two-months of 2023, the national government’s budget gap fell 53 percent to P60.6 billion from P129.2 billion in the same period last year.
At end-February, total revenues rose 14 percent from P490.5 billion to P560 billion, while expenditures marginally increased by 0.16 percent to P620.7 billion from P619.7 billion.
Net of interest payments, the government notched a P72.3 billion primary deficit in February, 6.84 percent lower than the P77.6 billion gap in 2022.
Meanwhile, the resulting year-to-date primary surplus stood at P20.5 billion, a reversal from the previous year’s primary deficit of P35.4 billion.
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