Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the Ten Months Ended 30 April 2013
4 Jun 2013
The Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the ten months ended 30 April 2013 were released by the Treasury today.
These financial statements are compared against forecasts based on the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU), released on 16 May 2013.
The Operating Balance before Gains and Losses (OBEGAL) was in deficit by $4.0 billion, which was $664 million lower than forecast primarily reflecting higher than expected tax revenue.
Core Crown tax revenue was $486 million higher than forecast, with corporate tax $532 million above forecast. Just over half this variance is thought to be the result of higher corporate profitability, partly resulting from continued strength in equity markets. The remainder is a timing difference with some large taxpayers filing returns in April, earlier than expected.
Core Crown expenses were close to forecast at $57.8 billion.
The operating balance surplus was $2.8 billion, $142 million below forecast. In addition to the $664 million lower OBEGAL deficit was a $759 million positive variance from the Crown’s investment portfolios, with the NZS Fund recording net gains of $737 million above forecast. Offsetting this result was an unfavourable variance in relation to ACC’s outstanding claims liability that was $1.5 billion above forecast, mainly due to a lower discount rate at the end of April compared to that used in the forecast.
The residual cash deficit was $529 million lower than expected. This reflected:
- Higher tax receipts than forecast ($258 million or 0.6%), with GST and other direct taxes $112 million and $111 million higher than forecast respectively; and
- Lower than expected operating payments ($287 million) due to a number of cash underspends, the largest by the Ministry of Education ($155 million).
Net debt was $441 million lower than forecast largely reflecting the residual cash result.
Gross debt was $859 million above forecast at $79.7 billion (38.1% of GDP). This higher debt was mostly due to the Reserve Bank’s financial liabilities being higher than forecast ($763 million), as part of its normal liquidity management activities. This variance is net debt neutral because the higher holdings of liabilities were offset by (correspondingly) higher holdings of financial assets.
| Year to date | Full Year | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $ million | April 2013 Actual1 |
April 2013 BEFU Forecast1 |
Variance to BEFU $m |
Variance to BEFU % |
June 2013 BEFU Forecast2 |
| Core Crown | |
|
|
|
|
| Core Crown tax revenue | 48,204 | 47,718 | 486 |
1.0 | 58,286 |
| Core Crown revenue |
52,667 | 52,243 |
424 |
0.8 |
63,809 |
| Core Crown expenses | 57,831 | 57,934 | 103 |
0.2 | 71,649 |
| Core Crown residual cash | (9,644) | (10,173) | 529 |
5.2 |
(7,750) |
| Gross debt3 | 79,682 |
78,823 |
(859) |
(1.1) |
78,636 |
| as a percentage of GDP | 38.1% | 37.7% | 36.8% | ||
| Net debt4 | 60,055 |
60,496 |
441 |
0.7 |
57,945 |
| as a percentage of GDP | 28.7% | 28.9% | 27.1% | ||
| Total Crown | |||||
| Operating balance before gains and losses | (3,990) | (4,653) | 663 |
14.2 |
(6,285) |
| Operating balance | 2,810 | 2,953 |
(143) |
(4.8) |
1,918 |
| Net worth attributable to the Crown |
62,187 | 62,446 |
(259) |
(0.4) |
61,476 |
1 Using GDP for the year ended 31 December 2012 of $209,324 million (Source: Statistics New Zealand)
2 Using forecast GDP for the year ended 30 June 2013 of $213,844 million (Source: Treasury)
3 Gross sovereign-issued debt excluding settlement cash and Reserve Bank bills
4 Net core Crown debt excluding student loans and other advances
ENDS
Officer for Enquiries
Kamlesh Patel | Office of the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accountant PortfolioTel: +64 4 917 6094
Email: kamlesh.patel@treasury.govt.nz
