WILLEMSTAD - Curaçao is bringing in more tax money than it had budgeted in the first quarter of this year. The Minister of Finance had expected to collect 409 million guilders, but in reality, it was 451 million guilders. A plus of 42 million. The Financial Supervision Board writes this in response to the first implementation report of this year.
According to the Board, the additional revenue mainly comes from turnover tax, profit tax, and real estate tax. But higher economic growth and inflation also contributed.
In the amended draft budget, Curaçao has revised the tax estimate for 2022 upwards by NLG 50 million and plans to update the estimate based on the results of the International Monetary Fund consultation. Only then will it be presented to parliament. The latter has to be done faster, the Supervisory Board believes.
At the same time, Curaçao spends less money than budgeted. In the first quarter, the government planned to spend 359 million guilders, but that has decreased by 10 million: 349 million guilders.
In particular, less money was spent on goods and services, and less was written off. The Board cannot determine whether this has happened because expenditure has actually fallen, has become cheaper, or whether there has been a delay in payments.
The latter may be the case, the Board previously expressed its concerns about the quality of the obligation management and would like to receive motivation from the Minister of Finance in the next report about the how and why of the underspending on goods and services.
According to the Board, it is of great importance that Curaçao also manages its expenses for several years this time. After all, the budget entails various risks that, if insufficiently controlled, could increase the deficit this year and nullify the budgeted surplus in 2023.
For example, the Board previously pointed to a possible overestimation before 2022 of the benefits from the license fee to be introduced for games of chance providers and to insufficient effectiveness of the measures to prevent shortages in the buffer reserve.
The Supervisory Board also pointed to the lack of measures to reduce the costs of care and social security in the country and to the threat of overtime being exceeded in the post.