UK Government Borrowing Falls in May

June 19, 2015 Share Print 0

A rise in income tax and VAT receipts helped to cut UK government borrowing in May, official figures have shown.

UK government borrowing fell to £10.13bn in May, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, down from £12.35bn a year earlier.

It was the lowest borrowing figure in May for eight years.

Public sector net debt excluding public sector banks now stands at £1.5 trillion, the ONS said, which is 80.8% of gross domestic product (GDP).

“While the deficit in the financial year ending 2015 has fallen by more than a third since its peak in the financial year ending 2010, public sector net debt has maintained a gradual upward trend,” the ONS said in a statement.

Income tax receipts recorded their highest level for May in four years, rising £0.5bn, or 5.3%, from a year earlier to £10.8bn. VAT receipts rose by £0.6bn, or 5.6%, to £10.7bn.
The ONS also said that it now estimated total public sector borrowing in the financial year to March 2015 was £89.2bn, or 4.9% of GDP.

While this figure was slightly higher than the previous estimate, it was still £9.3bn lower than the previous year’s total.

via BBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.