Puerto Rico on Monday cut its revenue projections for the current fiscal year by 5.2%.
The Puerto Rico Treasury Department now expects to receive $9.292 billion this fiscal year for the General Fund, rather than the $9.8 billion it had anticipated, according to the department.
According to the Treasury, among the factors contributing to this revision were revenues below projections in final quarter of fiscal year 2015, a period that was used to prepare the estimates for the current fiscal year.
Three of the last four months have also seen revenues below budget projections.
The Treasury reported that General Fund net revenues were down 3% in November compared to budget projections, and down 0.8% since the July 1 start of the fiscal year.
November revenues were off $15.4 million and the fiscal year-to-date revenues were off by $23.9 million.
Finally, the government passed laws excluding certain services from the new business-to-business sales and use tax, lowering revenues from this tax.
In November the best performing tax category was the tax on foreign corporations, which brought in $12.9 million more than expected. The worst performing category was non-resident withholding, which had $25 million less revenues than budgeted.
The revenue shortfalls and projections of additional revenue shortfalls come in the aftermath of Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla saying that if pressed he would prioritize the needs of Puerto Rico's "people" over its bondholders.
According to data from Municipal Market Advisors, the commonwealth owes $402.4 million in general obligation bond and government guaranteed debt service on Jan. 1. A total of $1.21 billion of debt service is due on that date from all Puerto Rico public sector entities.
In a story that appeared in the El Vocero web site on Monday, Puerto Rico Treasurer Juan Zaragoza G-mez said that due to the financial crisis the government is about 10 to 12 weeks late in paying its bills and that it owed $180 million in tax refunds.
