Tuesday 21 July 2009

Yup, as predicted.

A good summary of the figures at Sky News:

... Government accounts showed that the amount of tax collected plummeted by £32bn last year... Corporation tax takings plunged by 14.1%, VAT by 15.9% and income tax by 3.9%.

Part of the VAT shortfall can be explained by the fact that the rate went down from 17.5% to 15% of course, but £32 billion (about 5% of total receipts) looks 'about right', seeing as the economy contracted by something approaching 5%, so big deal, really.

But public spending rose again, with social benefit outlays up 9.7% to £13.3bn [as] more people claimed unemployment benefit.

OK, welfare spending up £1.2 billion in a month, that's £14 billion annualised, a hike of about 20% in non-pensions welfare spending, so again, big deal.

Let's assume that the economy now flatlines, we'd expect an additional deficit of around £50 billion (i.e. £32 billion less tax and £14 billion more welfare spending), which is 3% of GDP, pretty bad, but not the end of the world.

This is the deeply worrying bit, right at the end of the article, almost as an afterthought:

Chancellor Alistair Darling predicts net borrowing over the year hit £175bn - economists say £190bn is more likely.

We'll have to live with £50 billion of that, the question is, what on earth are they spending the other £140 billion on, about ten per cent of GDP? The obvious answer "more quangos and malinvestment and crap" is almost certainly the correct one.

0 comments: