Budgetary Receipts and Expenditures on Track for 2010
The Ministry of Finance announced that the equivalent of 3.16 billion euros of revenue flowed into the state budget in the first seven months of the year - 58.3 percent of the planned total for 2010.
Expenditures amounted to 3.17 billion euros, which was 54 percent of the year's total. The public sector was around 51 million euros in the black for June - the first time it had reached a surplus level in 2010. As expected, the deficit for the first six months of 2010 was 2.1 percent of GDP, the Ministry of Finance said.
Of the 3.16 billion euros of revenue received by the end of July, 2.29 billion euros was tax revenue. Social tax amounted to the greatest category of tax revenue with 1 billion euros, followed by value-added tax with 0.7 billion euros.
The figure for July was 580 million euros - 10.8 percent of the planned annual figure. Tax revenue was 378 million euros. Dividends were paid out by the state power utility Eesti Energia, which inflated the non-tax revenue figure by almost 100 million euros in July.
Of the 3.17 billion euros of expenditures over the seven months, the greatest single item was social benefits and allowances, which totaled 1.39 billion euros.
The ministry said the deficit was "as expected", as tax revenue is slower in the beginning of the year. Tax refunds and the acquisition of surpluses of excise goods in January had a one-time effect on tax receipts.
In the second half of the year, the budgetary position is expected to stabilize at the current level mainly due to greater receipts, driven chiefly by tax revenue and dividends. The Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund's budgetary position is also expected to improve month by month.