Puerto Rico's fiscal year 2015 budget is advancing through Puerto Rico's legislature as a June 30 deadline approaches.
On Saturday the House of Representatives passed its version, which included a General Fund with $9.565 billion in spending, $75 million less than in Gov. Alejandro García Padilla's recommended budget.
A source in the office of Senate President Eduardo Bhatia said Monday that he expected the Senate to vote on the budget on Tuesday. The Senate's Treasury Committee was discussing it on Monday afternoon.
News sources said the House budget has increased revenues from the "patente nacional" tax by $300 million from the amount recommended in the governor's proposed budget.
The patente was introduced for fiscal 2014 as a tax on gross sales on all businesses selling more than $1 million a year. It was projected to yield $500 million for fiscal 2014.
García Padilla's budget wasn't expected to require any further borrowing to support General Fund expenditures. This "balance" would ignore $270 million in capitalized interest gained from its March general obligation bond sale.
Subsequent to the announcement of the budget, the government's revenues came in $380 million short of projections in April. In early June Puerto Rico Secretary of the Treasury Melba Acosta Febo said the government was considering whether its fiscal 2015 revenue projections should be revised given April's revenues.
