March 2017 Deficit Preview

Just a quick preview of what March is looking like with 2 business days left:

(Click on image to enlarge)

 

The story so far is that refunds are up as expected, hurting net revenues, while corporate tax deposits are down 52% to just $18B compared to $38B last year. I wonder if companies pulled a lot of cost forward into 2016 thinking Trump would cut taxes in 2017? That’s not looking like such a safe bet anymore. The deficit currently sits at 119B… an estimate thanks to the “Extraordinary Measures” currently deployed. With April 1 on a weekend, a lot of outlays are going to be pulled forward and paid March 31, so a deficit in excess of $150B is pretty likely, though that will make April a little better… depending on the strength of tax receipts we could post a $200B surplus… hopefully they don’t experience the same collapse we are seeing in corporate taxes.