Public finances: Focus on expenditures
Last update: 26.02.2008 06:00
The first important information about the development in public finances over the last year concerns tax revenues – at SKK 258.2 billion, revenues exceeded the initial budget by about 4% (approximately SKK 10 billion). This fact must be understood from two points of view.
From the historical point of view, we are no longer in the period when the budget was improved by tax surpluses of more than SKK 20 billion (as in 2005 and 2006), which resulted in the increase of the budget by more than 10%.This means that when financing state activities it is necessary to focus particularly on savings, which may then be applied to priority tasks of the state. Thus, the focus is shifting to the expenditure side of the budget.
The structure of the tax surplus is also interesting. While in the previous period, before 2007, the tax surplus was driven mainly by better macroeconomic development, nearly half of the tax surplus in 2007 was the result of a one-off effect from the stockpiling of cigarettes.
The focus on savings in expenditures is a very good reason for further improving the quality of the programme budgeting, which will show the effects of the financing of individual activities, including those which will turn out to be unnecessary.
This budgetary dimension will be a key element in the preparation of the budget for 2009 to 2011. The evaluation and monitoring of objectives and measurable indicators in the use of public funds will be strengthened. One more important thing: this budgetary dimension will be used also at the level of local self-governments, which are obliged by law to prepare their next budget on the programme basis.