Earning more money and spending less is a sign of prosperity for individuals and efficiency for businesses as well as growth for economies. When a country collects more via taxes and its expenses drop, its fiscal deficit goes down, indicating the success of policies in bridging the gap.
India has narrowed its fiscal deficit to 6.4 per cent of the gross domestic product for FY23, from 6.7 per cent in the financial year before that.
Closing the gap
This improvement in the fiscal deficit is in line with the finance ministry's target, and sets the stage for taking it down to 4.5 per cent of the GDP by FY26.
Before that, the government has already set sights on narrowing it to 5.9 per cent for the ongoing fiscal year.
In line with targets
At Rs 24.56 lakh crore, the tax receipts for FY23 actually surpassed the revised budget target set by the government.
On the other hand, the expenditure at Rs 41.89 lakh crore didn't go past 100 per cent of the target.
Out of the total receipts, tax income accounted for the most at Rs 20.97 lakh cropre, which was again 100.5 per cent of the target for FY23.
The money transferred to states as devolution of share in taxes was Rs 50,000 crore more than last year, at Rs 9.48 lakh crore.
