{"id":245711,"date":"2026-01-22T07:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T07:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/245711\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T07:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T07:03:11","slug":"governments-finances-in-better-than-expected-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/245711\/","title":{"rendered":"Government’s finances in better than expected shape"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nicola<\/p>\n

\nFinance Minister Nicola Willis,
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n

The government’s finances were better than expected nearly half way through the financial year as a fall in expenses offset a lower tax take.<\/p>\n

Treasury figures, excluding ACC finances (OBEGALx), showed a deficit of $5.6 billion for the five months ended November, $1.1b lower than outlined in an updated forecast issued in the December<\/a> half year update (HYEFU).<\/p>\n

The deficit including the ACC finances (OBEGAL) was $1.05b lower than forecast at $5.9b.<\/p>\n

Treasury said all the main financial indicators were better than forecast.<\/p>\n

The core tax take was $200m lower at $49.1b, with company tax about $300m lower, and GST down $200m, which was partly offset by a rise in other individuals’ tax revenue.<\/p>\n

State owned enterprises and other crown entities earned more, and strong financial markets boosted the value of the NZ Superannuation Fund and other assets.<\/p>\n

Crown spending was more than $1.1b lower than forecast at $59.8b, driven by reduced spending on core government services, health, and a fall in the cost of carbon credits.<\/p>\n

However, Treasury said some of the reduced spending was likely to be because of the timing of programmes and might be reversed later in the financial year.<\/p>\n

Net debt was $900m lower than expected at $183.1b, about 41.6 percent of the value of the economy.<\/p>\n

The December HYEFU forecast an OBEGALx deficit of $13.8b for the year ended June 2026.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finance Minister Nicola Willis, Photo: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone The government’s finances were better than expected nearly half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-245711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}