The deficit grew by a trillion – Kommersant

Despite assurances from the Finance Ministry that the execution of the federal budget “indicates gradual normalization” and “generally complies with the parameters of the budget law,” its own heavily cut statistics do not yet confirm this. Judging by the data published by the department, in April alone the budget deficit amounted to more than 1 trillion rubles. This year it was higher only in January (1.65 trillion rubles), which was recognized as anomalous due to the unusually active advance of part of the contracted expenses. In general, over the four months of 2023, the budget deficit has already grown to 3.424 trillion rubles, which is more than the annual plan for this indicator of 2.925 trillion. As can be seen from the graph, for the last five years the budget has always been in surplus following the results of the first third of the year, including the same in the past, in the first year of the Russian military operation in Ukraine.

Revenues in January-April amounted to 7.782 trillion rubles, which is 2.252 trillion, or 22%, less than it was a year ago. The situation with oil and gas revenues, we recall, is consistently bad. Now it is minus 52% compared to last year – 2.282 trillion rubles. Separately, in April, such revenues slightly decreased compared to March and fell short of the basic level required by the authorities to cover expenses (for more details, see Kommersant of May 5). With the rest, that is, non-oil and gas revenues (5.5 trillion rubles), the situation is better – plus 5% compared to last year. Such growth within the limits of inflation was ensured by the main Russian tax in terms of the amount of fees – VAT. Its receipts for four months (domestic and “import” tax together) amounted to 3.439 trillion rubles, which is plus 11% year on year.

If budget revenues in the first third of the year are 2.3 trillion less than last year, then expenditures are about the same amount higher. For four months, spending amounted to 11.206 trillion rubles – plus 2.337 trillion, or 26%, compared to the same period last year. Their anomalously high growth rates, however, continued to slow down in April – according to the results of the quarter, expenses were 34% higher than last year. There is no need to talk about exactly what the increased spending went to – the Ministry of Finance has not given their distribution by sections at the end of the month, and operational information does not disclose from a quarter to a third of all expenses (now it is about 3 trillion out of 11 trillion spent this year budget rubles).

Vadim Visloguzov