Bumper VAT revenues help reduced 2005 budget deficit by zł.5 billion

The Finance Ministry will soon present an estimated income to the budget for December 2005. But even ignoring the data for the last month, it is obvious that the 2005 budget deficit will be below zł.30 billion. "The deficit in 2005 will be by zł.5-6 billion lower than previously anticipated," said Deputy Finance Minister Elżbieta Suchocka-Roguska. Analysts' projections are slightly less optimistic, but still they believe that the total budget income for 2005 will be zł.4 to 5 billion higher than expected. "We can see that the economy has finally begun to slowly develop," said Remigiusz Grudzień, analyst at bank PKO BP. Between January and November 2005 the state budget gained zł.164.4 billion, which means that the plan was realized in 94%. The income from VAT and excise in the same period amounted to zł.107.3 billion. The last month of the year is usually very favorable for the budget due to high incomes from imports from outside EU and the so-called "Christmas effect." (Puls Biznesu, p. 7) A.F.