Tunisia’s budget deficit dropped 23%, at the end of the first nine months of the current year, compared to the same period last year, to 3.8 billion dinars, as against 4.9 billion at the end of September 2020.
According to the provisional results of the execution of the state budget at the end of last September, 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.
In fact, the state’s budgetary resources grew 10.3% at the end of September to 23.5 billion dinars, compared to 21.4 billion on the same date a year ago.
This development is mainly the result of the increase in tax revenues of 15.1% from 19.3 billion dinars to 22.2 billion (95% of budgetary resources), while non-tax revenues went down 13% to 1.3 billion dinars.
With regard to tax revenues, direct taxes increased by 5% at the end of last September to 9.2 billion dinars. In detail, income taxes went up by 4.6% to 6.7 billion dinars, of which 4.8 billion from taxes on wages (+13.5%).
In terms of revenue, the tax system is the most important one.
For revenues from corporate taxes, they grew 6.1% to 2.4 billion dinars due to the increase in taxes on non-oil companies by 10.7% to 2 billion dinars. As for the tax on oil companies, it fell by 14.6% to 365 million dinars.
As for indirect taxes, they went up 23.6% to 13 billion dinars. This growth is mainly due to the increase in VAT by 31.7% to 6.4 billion dinars, customs duties by 21.6% to 1 billion dinars and consumer duties by 15.6% to 2.3 billion dinars.
The growth in indirect taxes is mainly due to the increase in VAT by 31.7% to 6.4 billion dinars.
As for the total state expenditure, it stood at 27.3 billion dinars, at the end of last September, against 25.7 billion a year earlier, up 5.9%.
The budgetary expenses are composed mainly (57%) of salary expenses which reached 15 billion dinars recording a growth of 6.8%, intervention expenses of 5.9 billion dinars (+6.6%) and financing expenses (interest on debt) of 2.8 billion dinars (+1.2%).
In addition, capital expenditure increased by 3.7% in the first nine months of the year to 2.4 billion dinars.
The Amending Budget Act of 2021 provides for a budget deficit of 9.8 billion dinars, compared to a deficit of 11.5 billion last year, and 7.9 billion initially provided for by the Finance Act 2021.
