Political debates about the United States federal budget

Tax revenues in Greece amounted to 66 billion euros in 2015, or 36.8 percent of the country's gross domestic product, up by a percentage point from 2014, according to the Revenue Statistics 1965-2015 report issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). That is above the OECD member-state average of 34.3 percent of GDP.

The total 2016 budget deficit could be half of the planned level - around two percent of GDP.

Serbia's Fiscal Council said this on Monday, noting that fiscal trends in the first seven months of the year had been excellent.

Croatia's government on Thursday passed a package of 60 reforms designed to boost growth, cut public debt, narrow the deficit, reduce unemployment and attract investment.

Bulgaria's Finance Ministry has revised its target for this year's consolidated budget deficit to 3.3% of GDP from originally projected 3.0%.

The revision, which suggests a rise in spending by the end of the year, has been announced alongside the release of the 2016 budget draft and an updated budget forecast for the period 2016-2018 on Monday.

Bulgaria's economy is expected to grow by 2.1% real next year, an increase compared to 2.0% projected for 2015, the Finance Ministry said on Monday.

Consolidated budget deficit equivalent to 2.0% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected for next year in a 2016 budget draft and an updated budget forecast for the period 2016-2018 published on the Finance Ministry website.

The commitment to fiscal discipline in Turkey is a key factor in the "stable" outlook for the country's credit rating, Fitch Ratings Senior Director Paul Gamble told Anadolu Agency on Sept. 22.

Fitch affirmed Turkey's investment-grade credit rating at "BBB-" with the outlook as "stable," on Sept. 18.

The Albanian government used emergency measures to cut its projected revenues and expenditures for 2015 after the first part of the year showed sluggish growth in tax receipts, putting in doubt the current strategy that aims to revive economic growth by cutting public debt.

Romania is still among the EU countries with a quite low tax-to-GDP ratio of roughly 32 percent, Secretary of State with the Public Finance Ministry Enache Jiru told a specialist conference.

Photo credit: (c) Alex MICSIK / AGERPRES PHOTO

The consolidated general budget ended Q1 2015 with a significantly higher surplus, 4.9 billion lei, 0.7% of GDP respectively, compared to a surplus of 2.3 billion lei, 0.33% of GDP respectively, in the first two months of this year, according to the data released by the Ministry of Public Finance (MFP).

Photo credit: (c) Cristian NISTOR / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

The Government's initiative of rewriting the Tax Code is justified and welcome, given the many modifications brought to this document over the years; nevertheless, major cuts to taxes and duties are not sustainable, the Fiscal Council says in its opinion on the Tax Code revision project.

Photo credit: (c) Cristian NISTOR / AGERPRES FLOW