Overestimated Tax Revenues: Brazil deficit much worse than forecast

BRASILIA:  

Brazil’s projected budget deficit for this year will be nearly twice as big as forecast when Dilma Rousseff was president, said new Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles on Friday. “Rousseff’s government vastly overestimated tax revenues from an economy in deep recession,” he said, adding Rousseff’s government had calculated the primary deficit at 96 billion reais ($27 billion) but the figure is more likely to be around 164 billion reais. Brazil, just a few years ago the fast-growing poster child of developing economies, is mired in acute recession and now headed for its third straight year of deficit spending. Meirelles said the deficit estimate did not take into account economic reform measures that were under consideration, such as renegotiating the terms of debt owed by Brazilian states.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 22^nd, 2016.

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