ANKARA- Central government budget had a deficit of 5.4 billion TL as of the end of February, indicating a 48% improvement compared to February 2009. Rises in tax revenues and seasonally low interest expenditures contributed to the improvements in budget performance.

Fiscal Monitoring Report January-February 2010 Budget Results prepared by TEPAV Stability Institute were announced. The report also involved a special section titled 'Budget Right and Constitutional Provisions'.

TEPAV assessed that as of the end of February, budget expenditures increased by 0.7 percent reaching 44.9 billion TL and budget revenues increased by 15.5 percent reaching 39.5 billion TL. Underlining that tax revenues surged by 21 percent in the mentioned period, the report maintained:

"It is striking that revenues from some types of taxes (particularly from VAT on imports) demonstrate a rise beyond the collection trends. It must be noted that the Ministry of Finance should make detailed statements regarding the source of this improvement.

A similar trend was observed also before and the situation was addressed in TEPAV Fiscal Monitoring 2006 December Report. In the following months TURKSTAT revised 2006 December import figures upwards and the effective ratio decreased from 15.2 to 13.1 percent, though still quite high. Therefore, the reasons for such increases in tax collections and particularly in VAT collections, which are beyond normal trends should be declared in further detail by the Ministry of Finance."