BRATISLAVA, July 27, (WEBNOVINY) — Almost EUR 250 million will be missing in the general government budget in Slovakia this year due to lower revenue from contributions and taxes. Analysts from the Finance Ministry’s Financial Policy Institute calculated this in their regular fiscal forecast. While expected revenue in this year’s general government budget from taxes and contributions was EUR 18.54 billion, in the new forecast is only EUR 18.294 billion. The shortfall is thus expected at EUR 246 million. The Finance Ministry informed about this on Friday. It also reduced the outlook for budget revenue from contributions and taxes compared with the approved budget for the following years. For next year by EUR 320 million and 2014 by EUR 472 million.
The stated reason for the shortfall is in particular weaker tax revenue than originally expected. The tax revenue shortfall this year is estimated at EUR 296 million, while EUR 50 million more is expected in the funds of social and health insurance. In the structure of tax revenue, weaker collection is expected especially in value-added tax, by EUR 208 million. Weaker collection compared with the budget is also expected of excise taxes by EUR 73 million, particularly due to for lower collection of excise duties on motor fuels, tobacco and tobacco products.
The Finance Ministry explains the declining revenue from value-added tax, which constitutes a substantial portion of tax revenue, by mismatch of growth of value-added tax revenue and the macroeconomic development, and also problems with the information system of the tax administration at the beginning of this year. There can be various reasons for the diverging development of tax collection and economic growth dynamics, according to the Finance Ministry. „The most likely is tax evasion. However, we cannot rule out an additional negative impact of cross-border shopping,“ says the fiscal forecast. Given the availability of data only for a short period, the department’s analysts will return to the reasons for weaker collection of value-added tax during the following update of the fiscal forecasts.
SITA
