The tax collection targets do not pan out

The tens of new recovery measures devised and adopted so far since last year, such as the regulations for an installment of 100 euros and the hike in real estate property through the PPC, can no longer save face.

Although these two measures are the only ones that are now bringing something to the State coffers, total tax revenues in the first quarter of 2012 were exactly the same as last year. The State collected just 11.95 billion euros, while the target was 12.3. And this was only the beginning, since at the end of the year it will have to collect almost five times as much as it did in the first quarter.

On the 357-million-euro hole that opened up early this year against the targets of 2012, one should add at least 20 million due to the weakness of the State to collect even 1 euro from what it calculated in the first quarter of this year.

To improve the situation, the Finance Ministry has frozen tax refunds. Thus, in the first quarter it returned only 518 million euros to taxpayers, while it estimated it would 729 million, and last year it returned 825 million. By doing so, it transfers the payments of an additional 211 million euros. But if it does not find a way to block the tax refunds to individuals who are entitled to them, then the black hole in revenue rises to 588 million.

Regarding expenditures, a comparison with the revised objectives of memorandum II shows a restraint of 1 billion euros. But half of it is due to the freezing of public investments. PDE absorbed 488 million and not 950, as was supposedly planned.

The burst in regular budget expenditures in the first quarter of 2012 is due to about 7 billion euros in interest payments held in the process of the exchange of Greek bonds.

As a result, the budget deficit jumped to 7.3 billion euros in the first quarter of 2012, increasing by 50% from the 4.8- billion deficit during the same period last year.

According to the budget figures released by the Finance Ministry, the costs of the regular budget (i.e. without the costs of the public investments program) amounted to 19.6 billion euros, while based on the annual targets they should have been decreased to 14.2 billion. The excess costs are mainly due to the payment of interest as a result of the PSI. During the period of January-March 2011 interest expenditures stood at 3.2 billion euros, while in January-March 2012 they amounted to 6.9 billion euros.