The national government’s budget deficit narrowed in September as revenue growth outpaced that of expenditures, according to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr).
In a statement yesterday, the BTr said the deficit was at P179.8 billion in September, slightly lower than the previous year’s level of P180.9 billion.
This brought the cumulative fiscal deficit for the January to September period to P1.01 trillion, 20.47 percent below the year-to-date ceiling of P1.27 trillion due to higher receipts and slower expenditure growth.
It is also down by 11.09 percent from the 2021 comparable outturn of P1.14 trillion.
National government expenditures grew by 13.63 percent to P468.6 billion in September 2022 from the P412.4 billion posted in the comparable period last year.
The BTr said this was driven mainly by higher capital expenditures, national tax allotment of local government units, and interest payments, alongside the subsidy releases for the National Health Insurance Program.
As of end-September, total expenditure has reached P3.67 trillion, outperforming the previous year’s level by 8.71 percent, but fell behind the nine-month program by 1.86 percent.
“Nonetheless, this narrowed down from the 3.04 percent program gap during the first semester of this year, indicating the gradual catching-up of agency disbursements,” the BTr said.
Meanwhile, total revenues rose to P288.8 billion in September, up by 24.79 percent year-over-year as both tax revenues and non-tax collections posted growth for the month.
The resulting P2.7 trillion year-to-date figure, which already accounted for 80 percent of the full-year program, similarly outstripped the previous year’s performance for the same period and the 2022 program by 18.79 percent and 7.74 percent, respectively.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s collection for the reference month reached P173.6 billion, showing a 12.58 percent growth over last year’s level. The agency’s aggregate collection for the nine-month period amounting to P1.7 trillion likewise grew by 12.29 percent.
However, collection was still 1.99 percent short of the P1.8 trillion year-to-date goal.
Likewise, collections by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) for September jumped 37.72 percent to P79.3 billion from last year’s P57.6 billion.
This drove BOC’s cumulative uptake as of end-September to P638.5 billion, almost 36 percent better than its performance for the equivalent period last year and 17.76 percent above the year-to-date revenue target.
