Through the first six months of the fiscal year, up until the end of March, the federal government collected a record $736,274,000,000 in individual income taxes, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS). However, the government is still carrying over a 539 billion dollar deficit after tax collection.
In a report from CNS News, the record amount collected in individual taxes was $24,473,780,000 more that was collected during the same time in 2017 as the $711,800,220,000, adjusted for inflation, was collected through March of last fiscal year.
Although the amount of funds collected from individual taxes has increased during the first half of the fiscal year, the amount collected from corporate income taxes and payroll taxes has decreased.
Through March 2018, the federal government collected $560,407,000,000 in payroll and Social Security taxes, $3,210,000 less than the $560,410,000,000 collected last year, adjusted for inflation rates concurrent with 2018.
During the October 2017 to March 2018 fiscal half, the federal government also raked in $78,607,000,000 in corporate taxes. Nevertheless, due to the slashing of the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent by the Tax Cut and Jobs Act signed into law in December 2017, numbers of collection are down. Constant in 2018 dollars, in 2017, the federal government collect approximately $102,599,230,000 through March 2017.
Even though there is a sharp decline in the amount of corporate tax dollars being collected, the total tax collection by the federal government in 2018 was only down by $10,930,630,000.
In the first six months of fiscal 2017, the Treasury collected $1,507,935,630,000 in total taxes, consistent with current rates of inflation. In the first six months of fiscal 2018, it has collected $1,497,005,000,000.
In taking in the aforementioned total amount, the federal government overdrew its bank account again with $2,096,713,000,000 in spending. Therefore, for the first six months of the fiscal year, the nation is running a deficit of $599,708,000,000.
The current deficit is now $60,419,720,000 more than the $539,288,280,000 that the federal government ran last year in the first six months of the fiscal year of 2017.
