Unemployment boom drains out Romania’s budget. Elsewhere in the news, the Lustration law threatens no one 20 years after it should have been adopted, on the contrary. Last but not least, Romanian President Traian Basescu wants to adopt 10,000 Moldavian citizens each month.
Unemployment boom drains out the budget, Adevarul informs. State spending for unemployment benefit is booming: +119% in Q1 against the same time last year. Though the fiscal deficit in Q1 is the IMF's main target, social assistance swallowed 15% more from the central budget and 55.6% more from local budgets.
The size of the economic crisis is obvious: state's incomes are worse off than last year's so far, with the VAT and work tax bringing the least amount of money of all. The budget got most of its funds from tax on profit (including the minimum tax): +8.9%, the tax on ownership and from duties. But the growing unemployment is a stress for the budget.
The Romanian state's incomes dropped 1.4% in Q1, i.e. 522 million lei. The economic activity hasn't got good news either. VAT revenues dropped 11.5%. Revenues from the income tax dropped by 9.5% and the duties for goods and services were 6.4% lower. The tax on ownership brought 11% more on the table. Tobacco brought 6% more revenues, as well. Three quarters of the price of tobacco represents taxes.
As for spending, the Government pulled off only a 0.5% saving in comparison with Q1 last year, by cutting investments short by more than one third (36.5%). Staff spending dropped, too, by 8.7%, while goods and services managed to save 0.4% against the first three months in 2009.
Unemployment benefits have soared by 119% more than last year. Overall, the social assistance increased by 15.6%, namely over 4.2 billion euros, almost as substantial as the first IMF instalment. Romania is struggling to mee
