The Abbott government’s cooking of the books in the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook continues to be exposed, this time by Finance Minister Matthias Cormann himself.
In the Government’s Monthly Financial Statement, which details actual spending and revenue for the government up to and including January, taxation revenue is running a thumping 1.5 per cent ahead of the projections outlined in MYEFO. In just seven months, that is $2.8 billion extra tax revenue over and above the increasingly discredited numbers in MYEFO.
Within those tax receipts, income tax is running 0.4 per cent ahead of MYEFO projections, while company tax collections are a stonking 4.6 per cent ahead of expectations. Even GST receipts are 1.8 per cent above forecasts, pointing to a much stronger economy than the made up numbers Mr Hockey’s office forced Treasury to use when compiling MYEFO.
All of which confirms what we already knew – the MYEFO numbers are built on foundations of sand and looked wrong at the time and are now proven to be wrong. The budget position is nearer the position indicated in the Pre-Election Fiscal Outlook.
It is also another blow to the bee-in-my-bonnet about the ABC Fact Checking Unit and their endorsement of Mr Hockey’s claim that the previous government left the Coalition with high growth in spending and one of the fastest increases in the budget deficit and level of debt going around.
Clearly it didn’t and using Mr Hockey’s MYEFO as proof of that claim is the ultimate act of gullibility.
