Hungary's HUF 92 billion budget surplus in January happened as a result of each subsystem of the government ending the month in the black, the Economy Ministry in its release of the detailed figures on Monday. The ministry introduced a number of novel features in the report, abandoning the usual format.
New format
The Economy Ministry released the details of its January report on government finances shortly after noon on Monday. The report is published on a monthly basis.
The cornerstone figures of the flash report remain in place: Hungary had HUF 92.2 billion surprlus in January. The central budget realised HUF 17.6 billion surplus; Social Security funds were HUF 41.2 billion in the black; the amount of designated government funds spent was HUF 33.4 billion less than planned. As Portfolio.hu underlined on the release of the preliminary report, the January figures are truly outstanding in comparison with the earlier years; the only higher time a higher January surplus went on record was in the year 2012.
The ministry has changed the format of the monthly government finances report; a new type of chart was added to the text summary allowing easy comparison of each year's budgetary performance (similar to the ones Portfolio.hu uses in our articles). In addition, charts and tables have been added to the detailed report to provide a more detailed picture of the revenue and expenditure side.
Another new feature is that while the usual tables remain part of the government balance sheet document, the charts have disappeared.
Detailed figures: the ministry bares all
According to the ministry, higher tax revenues were one contributing factor to the surplus, along with lower-than-projected EU programme expenditure related to the closing of the 2007/2013 EU budgeting period.
Revenues to the central government totaled HUF 1,269.4 billion in January, HUF 42.2 billion than a year earlier thanks to higher tax revenue from VAT, personal income tax and social security contributions. In addition, government offices realised revenues above their targets, as well.
The new, more detailed tables reveal why corporate tax revenue was only HUF 7 billion, which is a massive HUF 23 billion less than the amount in January 2015. The Economy Ministry explains: "At the expense of taxes and advance taxes payable in December 2015, businesses pledged financial support to sports, films and the performing arts to the tune of HUF 40 billion. However, the payment of most of these contributions - specifically, of HUF 29.1 billion - did not happen until January 2016."
The other central revenues are also presented in never-before-seen detail. The statistics show that electronic road toll revenue totaled HUF 10.789 billion, while highway stickers brought in HUF 2.5 billion.
January saw HUF 244.9 billion of VAT revenue, HUF 33.9 billion higher than a year earlier.
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