23 January 2015
MEDIA STATEMENT
Embargoed until 10.00am, Friday 23 January 2015

Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the Five Months Ended 30 November 2014

The Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the five months ended 30 November 2014 were released by the Treasury today. These statements are compared against forecasts based on the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) released on 16 December 2014.

Core Crown tax revenue was $94 million below forecast. GST, source deductions and corporate tax together were collectively $138 million lower than forecast, partly offset by higher-than-forecast customs and excise duties. However, year-on-year growth largely in source deductions, GST and corporate tax meant core Crown tax revenue was $1.6 billion (6.7%) higher than at the same time last year.

Core Crown expenses were $67 million lower than forecast at $29.9 billion. The variance is spread over a number of departments.

When Crown entity and State-owned enterprise results are included the operating balance before gains and losses (OBEGAL) deficit was $121 million lower than expected.

Net Gains were tracking $0.6 billion below forecast primarily due to a decrease in discount rates, with the actuarial losses on the ACC liability contributing $0.7 billion to the variance.

When added to the OBEGAL result, the operating balance (at $1.3 billion in deficit) was $466 million lower than forecast.

While the core Crown residual cash deficit (at $3.2 billion) was close to forecast, there were a number of overs and unders:

• Core Crown tax receipts were $84 million higher than forecast, with the main portion being corporate tax receipts, which were $89 million higher than forecast mainly due to provisional tax receipts.

• Other sovereign receipts were $120 million higher than forecast with higher collections of fees and levies than expected.

• Operating payments including the top-down adjustment were $163 million higher than forecast. Excluding the top-down adjustment payments were close to forecast.

Net debt at $62.6 billion (26.5% of GDP) was $220 million lower than forecast with more money in circulation due to increased Christmas demand.

Gross debt at $85.4 billion was $782 million higher than forecast, mainly due to a number of unsettled trades.

Full release with chart and report: mediafsgnz5mthsnov14.pdf

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