A 2.7 billion black hole in revenue

The government is playing its last cards to recover from a 2.7 billion euro loss in State revenue.

While in November it sought to collect nearly 6.5 billion euros from taxes, according to the latest estimates from the finance ministry collection finally did not exceed 3.75 billion.

Theoretically, the ministry will now need to collect about 8.3 billion in December to close the year with a deficit of 9% of the GDP,  which is the economic team's revised target. But now it appears that the deficit this year might exceed 10% of the GDP…

The problem, however, remains in the implosion of the market and the difficulties in collecting the extra taxes. Information indicates that revenues have fallen by 13.3% compared with November 2010, while collection of tax revenues in January-November 2011 declined by 5% over the same period last year.

However, the economic team hopes that it will reduce the black hole to 1 billion euros and close the deficit at 9% of the GDP. It estimates it will collect revenue until February 2012, which will be counted in the 2011 revenue, such as the second installment of the special property fee, the installments of the emergency fee, property tax for 2010 and traffic tax for 2012.

But the task is difficult since at the same time it should collect taxes attributable to 2012, and a bad start can further aggravate the plight of the country.