The government's unaudited financial statements for 2015-16 have been released (in lieu of the Public Accounts) and the deficit is down another $700 million from the last government estimate. Combined with earlier reductions, that means they came in with a deficit $3.5 billion less than they originally budgeted for 2015-16 in the 2015 budget. Revenue for 2015-16 is up $4 billion compared with the 2015 Budget forecast and up $2 billion from the 2016-17 Budget estimate for 2015-16. This is good news. After years of disappointing increases in revenue, we now have a whopper of a year. Revenue increased $9.8 billion between 2014/15 and 2015/16 - - that is an 8.3% increase. Two billion of this is related to the Hydro sell-off. But there are big increases in revenue from corporate taxes (up 19%), income taxes (up 6.2%) and sales taxes (up 8.1%). Money is rolling in. Interest on debt is down $400 million compared to the 2015 Budget estimate and down $200 mi
Notes from Leftwords -- Doug Allan