The Treasury Department announced a September surplus of $75 billion, helping to push the final fiscal 2013 deficit down to $680 billion, according to a report (link opens as PDF) released today.
This fiscal year's deficit shows major improvement over previous years. 2012's deficit clocked in at an unlucky 13-digit $1,089,193,000,000, a full 37% above this year's $680,276,000,000.
While overall spending dropped off 2.3% with the help of a 6.3% decline in the defense budget, incoming receipts were where the Treasury made up major ground. A 13.3% increase to $2.77 trillion helped shrink the deficit significantly. Individual taxes, pushed higher by this year's payroll tax increase, registered a 16.3% hike to clock in at $1.32 trillion.
Source: Treasury Department.
Looking ahead, the Congressional Budget Office forecasts fiscal 2014's deficit to worsen slightly to $750 billion. While receipts are expected to top $3 trillion, spending will increase a relatively larger amount to $3.8 trillion.
