In November, the federal budget was closed for the fourth month in a row with a monthly surplus.

In November, the federal budget closed for the fourth month in a row with a monthly surplus. Its size, based on a comparison of Ministry of Finance data for 11 and 10 months, amounted to 357 billion rubles—with income of 2.857 trillion, expenses in November amounted to 2.5 trillion rubles. As a result, the budget deficit accumulated over all 11 months of this year decreased to 0.5% of GDP, or to 878 billion rubles, this year’s minimum value. The 2023 budget law provides for an annual deficit of 2%, but, according to the latest estimates by representatives of the Ministry of Finance, the figure could ultimately reach 1% of GDP. This means that in a single December, the budget will be in deficit – in the last month, expenses are noticeably higher than the monthly average (this is due to shock payments for contracts by budget recipients, advanced social payments, interbudgetary transfers and debt servicing).

In total, revenues in January-November amounted to 25.963 trillion rubles. This is 4.8% more than in the same period last year. This increase was obtained thanks to non-oil and gas revenues, which over 11 months amounted to 17.737 trillion rubles, or plus 25.6% compared to last year. The growth was ensured by VAT, the collection of which, due to the restoration of business activity in previous months, provided more than half (58%) of all non-oil and gas revenues – 10.234 trillion rubles. (we are talking about all revenues from this tax – “domestic” and “imported”). The growth rate of VAT collections is 22.8%. Income tax did not increase as significantly – by 12.2% (1.74 trillion rubles based on the results of January-November).

The situation with the second component of the revenue side—oil and gas revenues—is worse. They amounted to 8.172 trillion rubles. (23.3% less than it was for the same period in 2022). The gap from last year’s schedule, however, is gradually decreasing (at the end of the first half of the year it was 47%, for three quarters – 34.5%, see “Kommersant” dated December 6).

Budget expenditures for 11 months are 26.841 trillion rubles, plus 11.7% compared to the same period in 2022. The annual expenditure figure planned by the budget law is 29.056 trillion, but, according to the promptly updated budget schedule, it will be significantly higher – 32.582 trillion rubles. Thus, over 11 months, the expenditure part was fulfilled by 82.4%, and 5.741 trillion rubles should be spent in December, which is 2.3 times more than in November.

Vadim Visloguzov