Increasing prices of air transport tickets will increase budget's revenues by EGP 330m, Head of Tax Authority Abdel Moneim Mattar said in an interview on state television Tuesday. Mattar said hiking prices of transportation services will help reduce the budget deficit, noting that tax collection represents 65% of the budget revenues. The tax authority collected EGP 55bn out of targeted EGP 60bn in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, between July and the end of September. According to the current state budget, the general revenues for the new fiscal year's budget are expected to grow by 28%, amounting to EGP 622.2bn, since taxes are the largest source of state revenues. The government is expected to increase tax revenues in the current budget by 32.9%, compared to the previous state budget for FY 2014/2015. The estimate of the current fiscal year's expenditures is EGP 789bn. The budget deficit is expected to register EGP 240bn, which is equivalent to 10% of GDP.
