Higher income, lower expenses leaves Dutch govt. with €200 mil. budget surplus

Thanks to higher than expected revenue and lower than expected spending, the Dutch government is left with a 200 million euros surplus on the 2016 budget, Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem of Finance said in a letter to parliament on Thursday, ANP reports.

The surplus can almost entirely be attributed to the total tax and premium revenue of last year, which came out 3.1 billion euros higher than projected. Expenses were 0.2 billion euros lower. In the Autumn calculations the government still expected a budget deficit of 3.1 billion euros.

Dijsselbloem stressed that these are still preliminary figures. Statistics Netherlands will present further figures in March.

According to the Finance Minister, it is not yet possible to estimate what impact the higher 2016 income will have on the 2017 budget. Dutch central planning office CPB will present those calculations late next month.