The U.S. federal government on Friday reported a net surplus of $70.5 billion in June, the largest for a single month in five years, according to the Treasury Department’s latest monthly statement.
Washington is now on pace to record the smallest year-to-date budget deficit since fiscal 2008, with a fiscal year-to-date deficit of $366 billion, $144 billion less than in the same nine months of fiscal 2013.
“Deficits are rapidly declining,” Paul Edelstein, director of U.S. financial economics at IHS Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg before the report was released. “A lot of it is coming on the revenue side, mostly from taxes — there were increases in payroll taxes last year, which are still being felt this year, corporate profits are up and they are paying more in taxes.”
The $71 billion budget June surplus is a sign that a stronger U.S. economy is helping government coffers through a rise in tax receipts.
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