Budget will help consumers — but only just

BASED on the data published in last Saturday’s government White Paper on Receipts and Expenditure, the scene is set for a very generous Budget tomorrow.

The Department of Finance is forecasting that the opening general government surplus for 2007 will be over €4.4 billion or 2.3% of GDP. At the same time, the department estimates that the Exchequer balance will be in surplus at over €1bn in 2007.

In last year’s budget, the Minister for Finance spent over €1 billion extra on social inclusion measures. He is likely to add somewhat more to spending in 2007. On the taxes side, his various measures last year cost the Exchequer about €750 million. However, as a result of his various tax and spending proposals in the last budget, he estimated that he would get back almost €500m in additional tax revenue arising from the impetus that the budget would give to the economy.