October revenue beats collection goal by B9.2bn

The government got off to a flying start for fiscal 2018, with revenue collection exceeding the target by nearly 10 billion baht in October.

State agencies managed to amass 192.4 billion baht in the government’s coffers last month, surpassing the target by 9.18 billion, said Suwit Rojanavanich, directorgeneral of the Fiscal Policy Office. The uptick in revenue could be largely attributed to higher than targeted income from state enterprises and state agencies.

State enterprises’ income contribution in October was 4.44 billion baht, 14.8% higher than projected, while other state agencies’ income was 1.37 billion, or 8.3% above target.

However, October’s revenue was 6.6% lower than in the same period a year earlier.

Government revenue collection is a proxy for the country’s economic growth, Mr Suwit said.

“Continued economic growth helps the government’s revenue collection,” he said. “The Finance Ministry will closely monitor revenue collected by departments under our supervision to ensure we achieve our target for the 2018 fiscal year.”

The target for fiscal 2018 revenue collection is 2.45 trillion baht, while the annual budget is 2.9 trillion, leaving a deficit of 450 billion.

The Revenue Department gathered 117 billion baht in revenue during the first month of the fiscal year, exceeding the target by 726 million or 0.6%, and 2.76 billion or 2.4% higher than in the same period a year ago.

Personal income tax surpassed the target by 584 million baht or 2.7% at 22.1 billion, but that was down 2.5% from a year earlier. Value-added tax collected in October tallied 63.7 billion baht, 488 million higher than the target and an 8.9% increase year-on-year.

The Excise Department gathered 40 billion baht in revenue last month, marginally higher than the target but 977 million or 2.4% lower than a year earlier. Excise tax on beer was 5.56 billion baht, besting its target by 1.14 billion.