Turkey's budget is announced to experience a surplus of TL 3.7 billion ($1.26 billion) for May, while on a five-month cumulative basis, the budget surplus stood at TL 9.1 billion, a 12-year high. Also, according to the data released by the Finance Ministry, in May, the non-interest surplus is at TL 8.7 billion.
For the cumulative period between January and May, the non-interest surplus is declared at TL 33 billion, marking a 13-year high. Concerning these numbers, Finance Minister Naci Ağbal wrote a statement saying that the strong income sources, which have been at considerably high levels, were the major factor leading the budget to a successful performance.
He drew particular attention to the corporate income tax which saw a return of TL 58.9 billion for the first five months of the year, increasing by 16.2 percent compared with the same period last year. Ağbal added that over the same period, incomes from the private consumption tax and the included value-added tax (VAT) supported a 12 percent rise in revenues from taxes.
He also noted the limited increase of 2.9 percent in revenue from VAT received from imports, due to weak foreign trade. He referred to non-tax incomes, saying under the effect of the rises in capital incomes arising from enterprises and property, non-tax incomes reached TL 47.6 billion, seeing a rise of 42.1 percent for the same period.
