by Chris Becker
The Coalition government has been promising a return to surplus for sometime now, having put it’s stamp on the mid-year budget back in December last year. But the latest trade figures and the slumping housing market is having a material impact on that promised return. Fitch Solutions has put a fly in the ointment, predicting no such return as promised for the FY2019/20 fiscal year:
We at Fitch Solutions are revising our forecasts for Australia’s federal fiscal deficit as a share of GDP to 0.3% in FY2018/19 (July-June) and 0.1% in FY2019/20, respectively, from 0.5% and 0.4% previously. This contrasts with the government’s forecast of a deficit of 0.1% and a surplus of 0.2% over the same period. We believe that a moderation in economic growth in FY2019/20 will likely result in weaker revenue collection growth due to slower company tax and individual tax revenue growth.