September deficit hits NIS 2.8 billion

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The Israeli government's deficit reached NIS 2.8
billion in September, according to preliminary
Finance Ministry estimates published yesterday.

From the start of the year, the deficit has climbed to
NIS 20.1 billion, which is 32 percent above the cabinet's target for
the entire year. The government had committed to a deficit not
exceeding NIS 15.2 billion (or 3 percent of GDP) in 2003.

Jerusalem circles project that
the deficit in practice will reach NIS 30
billion this year.

Preliminary figures from the tax authorities
show September 2003 tax revenues of NIS 12.8
billion, roughly unchanged from September 2002.
But collection figures for the last month were
skewed upwards, because of a delay in paying
out VAT refunds. If that delay and legislative
changes were factored out, then in fact tax
collection in September 2003 was 5 percent
below September last year in real terms.

Haaretz

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1. Kick

Dug this up:

http://www.democraticunderground.org/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=5277

So Israel is heading for debt something over 110% of GDP, and
one would suspect the US for something a bit higher than the
stated 60.7%, what with Shrub's deficit.

I still don't quite see how the numbers worked for last year.
The deficit went up ~54 billion NIS, we seem behind that a bit
this year, but that might be because of the cuts and other things.