Zagreb - The Sabor on Friday revised the 2022 State Budget for the second time this year, with 77 lawmakers of the majority voting in favour of the revision and 46 opposition MPs voting against.
The amendments to the budget include an increase in total revenue of HRK 758.2 million to HRK 171.8 billion, while expenditures remain at HRK 184.7 billion.
Accordingly, the budget is expected to record a deficit of HRK 12.9 billion or 2.7% of GDP.
The increase in revenue is primarily due to increased income from taxes, especially from VAT, by HRK 2.1 billion, and from profit tax, by HRK 2 billion.
Disgruntled with the amendments, the opposition called out the government for exploiting inflation to fill the budget "through the most unfair tax, VAT," while handing out only crumbs to citizens through various support measures.
HDZ rejected the opposition's claims and said that the government is rationally managing the state's finances.
The Sabor first revised this year's state budget in May. Originally, the government forecast a GDP growth rate of 4.4% this year, only to reduce it to 3% in the May revision and now estimates that economic growth this year will be 5.7%.
At the same time, it upgraded the estimated inflation rate this year to 10.4%, compared to May's forecast of 7.8%.