The Greek Finance Ministry is having trouble accumulating the necessary state revenues after the major 1-billion-euro shortfall that was recorded in January 2015. Furthermore, a top government official noted that the expected fiscal gap for the period 2015-2016 will amount to between 5 and 7 billion euros. The definitive Greek state budget execution which was officially published on Wednesday, February 25, showed that revenues from income tax and value-added tax (VAT) showed a major decline due to the political uncertainty that the country is facing over the last months and also due to the monitoring mechanisms’ inactivity. As a result due to the state revenue shortfall in January, the country’s primary surplus stood at 443 million euros, a significantly lower in comparison to the 1.366 billion euro target. Meanwhile, net revenues reached 3.49 billion euros, missing their target by 1.05 billion (23.1%), while income tax revenues missed the target by 49% and indirect tax revenues were off by 13.8%. VAT revenues showed a 20.4% shortfall and finally expenditure stood at 3.3 billion euros, which is 16 million more than the original target. As the shortfalls are creating problems for the new Greek government, Alternate Finance Minister Nadia Valavani is trying to set up a new payment plan for expired debts to the state. She plans on presenting the bill to Greece’s creditors, over the next week so that it can be tabled in the Greek Parliament.
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