Mysterious 102 billion interest patch for the budget
The government, which day by day increased the burden of the state’s debt because it could not find resources, increased the budget with virtual income above the debts. 61 billion 515 million lira of virtual interest income was noted in this year’s budget using the method of writing income instead of expenses in the budget of accrued interest from reissued Treasury bonds. Thanks to the fact that the debt to be paid at the end of the term is included in the budget as if it were real income, the budget deficit this year was approximately 61 billion lira smaller. Over the past 3 years, the total amount of virtual revenue written in the budget in this way has reached 101 billion 708 million lira. Since BOTAŞ’s natural gas debt to Russia, amounting to approximately 250 billion lira, is not included in the budget, it is estimated that the budget deficit, which appears to be 139 billion lira, is actually close to to 500 billion lire.
EXPENSES WRITTEN TO RESULTS
‘Interest’, which is among the highest spending items in the budget, has recently become one of the highest revenue items in the budget. In the last 3 years, the item called ‘Past Interest Debt Values and Sales Income Premiums’ has increased 12.5 times with respect to the previous 3 years. In the last 3 years, covering the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, the amount of virtual income written in the budget under the name of interest income has reached 101.708 billion lira. More than half of this, 61.5 billion lira, was included in the 2022 budget. Whereas, the virtual income in the previous 3 years covering 2017, 2018 and 2019 was only 8.1 billion TL. As CPI-linked bond lending increased, virtual income exploded and became the single most important element keeping the budget deficit low.
Since BOTAŞ’s approximately Lira 250 billion natural gas debt to Russia is not included in the budget, it is estimated that the budget deficit, which appears to be Lira 139 billion, is actually closer to Lira 500 billion. million lire.
Virtual income, not real
Accumulated interest on reissued bonds is included in the budget as ‘income’. In fact, these income from the accounting of the CPI-indexed bonds do not represent a real income as in taxes or penalties, but the virtual amount of the accounting record. Kerim Rota, Chairman of Economic Policy of the Party of the Future, stated that the budget was made with this income and made the determination: “Tell me how much budget surplus you want to give, I will issue you the corresponding papers and provide you with the budget surplus you want.”