Poland’s budget in surplus, tax revenue soars: finance minister
PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki
31.10.2017 12:43
For the first time since 2007, Poland reported a budget surplus as of the end of September, the country’s finance minister announced on Tuesday.
Deputy PM and Finance and Development Minister Mateusz Morawiecki briefs reporters on Poland's budget at a news conference in Warsaw on Tuesday. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
The budget surplus for the first nine months of the year totalled PLN 3.8 billion (EUR 890 million, USD 1.04 billion), Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a press conference in Warsaw.
He added that revenue from value-added tax (VAT) between January and September was up 23.3 percent on the same period last year as the government continued to clamp down on fraudsters.
While the historic surplus is expected to turn into a deficit in the following months, Poland will close the year with a budget deficit of just over PLN 30 billion, the lowest since it emerged from communism in 1989, according to the finance ministry’s forecasts.
The finance ministry said in March that new laws to crack down on tax cheats targeting the finance sector could see an extra PLN 32 billion flowing into state coffers over 10 years.
The conservative Law and Justice party, which swept to power in Poland’s 2015 general election on a wave of spending and welfare promises, has made a determined effort to tackle tax evasion as a way of boosting the state's revenue.
Next year, social spending in Poland will be about PLN 55 billion higher than in 2015, the last year the country's previous government led by the Civic Platform party was in power, Morawiecki told reporters on Tuesday.
(gs/pk)
Source: IAR, PAP