Problem: TOO MUCH SPENDING!

Published on CNS News (https://www.cnsnews.com)

Feds Collect Record Income Taxes Through December; Still Run $225 Billion Deficit

(CNSNews.com) - The federal government collected record individual-income-tax revenues through the first quarter of fiscal 2018 (October through December), according to the new Monthly Treasury Statement [1]. This was the last quarter before the new tax-cut law signed by President Donald Trump on Dec. 22 took effect.

Despite taking in record individual-income-tax revenues, the federal government ran a deficit of approximately $225 billion during the quarter.

The Treasury collected a record $390,847,000,000 in individual income taxes in October through December, according to the Treasury statement. That was $30,568,380,000 more than the $360,278,620,000 that the Treasury collected (in constant December 2017 dollars) in individual income taxes in the first quarter of fiscal 2017 (which ran from October through December of 2016).

[2]

Fiscal 2016, when the Treasury collected $366,424,140,000 in individual income taxes in the first quarter (in constant December 2017 dollars), now ranks as the No. 2 all-time year for first-quarter individual-income-tax collections.

Total tax collections in the first quarter of fiscal 2018 equaled $769,512,000,000. But because the government spent $994,467,000,000 during the quarter, the Treasury ran a deficit of $224,955,000,000.

The $769,512,000,000 in total tax revenues during the quarter did not set a record for first-quarter total tax collections. It was more than the $756,394,470,000 in total taxes (in constant December 2017 dollars) that the Treasury collected in the first quarter of fiscal 2017, but less than $798,012,340,000 in total taxes (in constant December 2017 dollars) that the Treasury collected in the first quarter of fiscal 2016.

The $769,512,000,000 in total tax revenues collected in the first quarter of this year included not only the record $390,847,000,000 in individual income taxes, but also $62,052,000,000 in corporate income taxes; $259,165,000,000 in Social Security and other payroll taxes; $19,458,000,000 in excise taxes; $5,258,000,000 in estate and gift taxes; $9,446,000,000 in customs duties; and $23,588,000,000 in miscellaneous government receipts.

According to the Census Bureau [3], there were 126,224,000 households in the United States in 2017. The $769,512,000,000 in total taxes collected by the federal government in the first quarter of fiscal 2018 equaled approximately $6,096 per household.