Tunisia’s budget deficit has narrowed by 16% until end October 2021, compared to the same period of 2020, to 4.5 billion dinars, from 5.4 billion at the end of October 2020.
According to the provisional results of the execution of the state budget at the end of last October, this reduction in the deficit is the result of the increase in budgetary resources, especially tax revenues, at a faster pace than that of expenditure.
Indeed, the budgetary resources of the State have risen by 9.1% at the end of October 2021 to 26.1 billion dinars, from 24 billion on the same date a year ago.
This development is mainly due to the increase in tax revenues by 13.2% from 21.7 billion dinars to 24.6 billion (95% of budgetary resources), while non-tax revenues have virtually stagnated at 1.5 billion dinars.
As for tax revenues, direct taxes grew 4.2% at the end of October to 10.1 billion dinars. In detail, taxes on income increased by 2.9% to 7.5 billion dinars including 5.4 billion from taxes on wages (+12.1%).
For revenues from corporate taxes, they increased by 8.1% to 2.6 billion dinars due to the increase in taxes on non-oil companies by 10.3% to 2.2 billion dinars. As for the tax on oil companies, it fell by 2.2% to 430 million dinars.
Indirect taxes went up 20.5% to 14.5 billion dinars. This growth is mainly due to the increase in VAT by 27% to 7.2 billion dinars, customs duties by 19.6% to 1.1 billion dinars and consumption duties by 12.7% to 3.5 billion dinars.
Indeed, the total expenditure of the state stood at 30.6 billion dinars at the end of October, against 28.7 billion a year earlier, posting an increase of 6.6%.
These budgetary expenses are composed of 54% of salary expenses which reached 16.6 billion dinars, posting a growth of 5.2%, intervention expenses of 6.5 billion dinars (+12%) and financing expenses (interest on debt) of 3.2 billion dinars (+0.4%).
In addition, investment expenditure has increased by 7.8% over the first 10 months of the year 2021 to 2.9 billion dinars.
The amending budget law of 2021 provides for a budget deficit of 9.8 billion dinars, against a deficit of 11.5 billion in 2020, and 7.9 billion initially provided for by the Finance Act 2021.
