Tunisia’s budget deficit went down by 58% at the end of the first five months of the current year, compared to the same period of the previous year to 1.4 billion dinars, against 3.4 billion at the end of May 2020, according to the provisional results of the execution of the state budget.
This reduction in the deficit is the result of the combined effect of the drop in budgetary expenses and the increase in budgetary resources coming mainly from the growth of state tax revenues.
In fact, budgetary resources stood at 13 billion dinars at the end of last May, compared to 11.4 billion on the same date a year ago, up 13.6%. This development is mainly due to the increase in tax revenues of 18.3% from 10.1 billion dinars to 12 billion. On the other hand, non-tax revenues dropped 27% to 923 million dinars.
As for direct taxes, they increased by 6.5% at the end of May to 4.1 billion dinars. In detail, income taxes grew 8.7% to 3.9 billion dinars, including 2.7 billion taxes on wages (+13.9%).
In the case of income taxes, the increase is due to the fact that the tax rate is higher than that of the other taxes.
For revenue from corporate taxes, they fell by 0.8% to 1 billion dinars due to the increase in taxes on non-oil companies by 10% to 887 million dinars.
As for the tax on oil companies, it fell by 31.5% to 195.6 million dinars.
As for indirect taxes, they increased by 28.4% to 7 billion dinars. This growth is mainly due to the increase in customs duties by 27% to 567.8 million dinars, VAT by 36.1% to 3.5 billion dinars and consumption rights by 20% to 1.2 billion dinars.
In addition, other indirect taxes posted a rise of 21.3% to 1.8 billion dinars.
As regards the total expenditure of the state, they amounted at the end of last May to 14.4 billion dinars, against 14.8 billion a year earlier, down 3%.
Budgetary expenses are composed mainly (60%) of salary expenses which reached 8.5 billion dinars recording a growth of 6.3%, intervention expenses of 2.7 billion dinars, and financing expenses (debt interest) of 1.6 billion dinars (-1.9%).
