If parliament adopts revisions to laws increasing some excise taxes in time and the government manages to patch up the cash shortage in the state budget for 2003 with privatization proceedings or income from state financial assets, there will be no need to revise the state budget law for 2003. Finance Minister Ivan Miklos said in response to the widening state budget deficit. The January to May gap exceeds 50 percent of the level budgeted for the entire 2003. „Material on budgetary risks, which the cabinet approved last week, addresses the current development of the state budget,“ said Mr. Miklos.

Preliminary figures show the state budget deficit of the Slovak Republic at SKK 30.58 billion in the first five months of this year, which is 54.6 percent of the figure planned for the whole year. Total state budget revenues reached SKK 79.062 billion at the end of May, 33.6 percent of the annual target. Expenditures stood at SKK 109.642 billion, making up 37.6 percent of the projected sum for 2003.

Collected taxes constituting the core of total state budget revenues were at just 33.5 percent of the level budgeted for 2003. The collection of value added tax (VAT) and corporate income tax lagged the most behind the budgeted level.