http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-21/u-k-posts-record-august-deficit-as-slump-hits-tax-revenue-1-.html
Britain posted its biggest August budget deficit on record, heaping pressure on Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne as the recession hits tax revenue and pushes up spending on welfare.
The shortfall excluding government support for banks was 14.4 billion pounds ($23.5 billion), the Office for National Statistics said in London today. The median of 21 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey was for a deficit of 15 billion pounds. Tax revenue rose 1.8 percent in August from a year earlier and government spending climbed 2.5 percent.
The figures highlight the damage being wrought by weaker- than-expected economic output this year. Economists say Osborne is set to miss his self-imposed deadline to start bringing down debt in three years, leaving him to choose between abandoning the goal or announcing fresh austerity measures. Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said yesterday it may be “acceptable” to miss the target if it was because of the weak economy.
“If you extrapolate from today’s figures, we will be somewhere between 10 billion and 35 billion higher than expected for the year,” said George Buckley, an economist at Deutsche Bank AG in London. “The deficit is only fractionally higher than last year, so in some ways it’s good news, but we’re still looking at a big overshoot.”
= new reply since forum marked as read
