Budget collects 2bn euros less than expected

Budget revenues stood at 121.5 billion RON (36.4 billion euros) for 2007, 6.9 billion RON (2.07 billion euros) below the revised collection plan, according to data published on Tuesday by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF). In terms of percentage points, collected revenues fell 5.4% below expectations, the same source reveals. However, against the initial budget, collected sums fell just 0.5% below expectations, which means that the Finance Ministry managed to achieve the budget voted in Parliament. However, the first two budget adjustments, which were made last year, significantly raised the revenue collection targets, while the third one fell slightly below the planned budget. In other words, the optimism in the first part of the year caused the Finance Minister to overestimate the budget’s collection capacity by around 2 billion euros. The largest disparities were for customs duties (- 45%), excises (-10%), VAT (-9%) and the profit tax (-7%).