US DAILY DEFICIT

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Tuesday 1/14 2014 was $1.2B followed by a negligible $18M deficit on Wednesday 1/15. This brings the January 2014 deficit through 15 days to $26B…a $9B improvement over the similar period in 2013.

Revenues are down $5B YOY….remember earlier in the month we were at $-9B, so there has been improvement. I am becoming cautiously optimistic though that most of this is timing and we may end up with a solid YOY. Corporate taxes are up $1B YOY…good for a 13% increase… perhaps a good sign since the timing issues affecting the other streams have been more or less worked out of this one thanks to the $7.1B of corporate tax receipts 1/15….and nothing material left for the month.

With corporate taxes behind us…next up is individual income and employment taxes-not withheld. I don’t know the specific due dates, but deposits are currently coming in at about $5B per day….last year they peaked 1/23 at $18.5B. While 2014 is a day behind at this point in our charts…the front edge of these payments appear to be a little bit stronger than last year so far…though that won’t necessarily correlate to a strong finish, it can’t be a bad thing.

Outlays are also down….$16B. Now…$10B of that is likely just the missing day….we’ll catch back up on the backside. The rest is likely spread among several programs…with defense, unemployment, and education spending sticking out the most.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Monday 1/13/2014 was $7.6B pulling the January 2014 deficit down to $27B through 13 days. YOY….revenues were down $1B and outlays were down $1.5B.

While revenues were down, I suspect some of that is timing….2013 is a day ahead of 2014 now, so revenues driven by day of month instead of day of week are going to jump ahead in our comparison, but we should more or less sync back up by the end of next week. Through 13 days of Jan/2014…I have to say revenues appear healthy once you adjust for timing…that’s a good thing, but the we’ll know a lot more by the end of next week.

Outlays are also looking good…down $17B YOY, and while 2013 has an extra day, the delta is growing. I don’t expect the month to end negative YOY due to some month end timing, but if it sticks, it will be interesting to see where the decreases are coming from.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Friday 1/10/2014 was $0.4B, leaving the January 2014 deficit essentially unchanged at $34B 1/3 of the way through the month.

Revenues and Outlays were essentially flat YOY, so no news there. Given the revenue surge right around the corner, we could see surpluses for most of the next few weeks, though a deficit or two might pop out depending on the timing. It probably won’t be enough to push us to surplus by month end, but strong revenues could make it close.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Thursday 1/9/2014 was $5.2B, which in addition to the unreported$10.3B deficit for Thursday 1/8/2013 brings the January 2014 cash deficit through 9 days to $35B.

No real YOY movement over the last 2 days. So far this month, while we still have some unresolved timing issues making it difficult to forecast, just penciling it out, we are on track for roughly flat outlays and moderate revenue gains for the month. But…let me be clear…that’s only if the trend holds, and that’s probably not a safe assumption at this point.

Starting early next weak, we will see the beginning of a revenue surge that should last about a week as tax payments are made…roughly between 1/14 and 1/23.Whatever happens during that period is going to determine whether we have a terrible, ok, or great month, and should give us some insight into what the rest of the year looks like.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Tuesday 1/7/2013 was $1.9B…a bit of a surprise since we generally do not see surpluses on Tuesday.  I suppose it’s a bit comical….yesterday I commented on how the cash FTD’s for the day were up only 2.2%…not nearly enough. Today…as if our prayers were answered….cash FTD’s were 6.511B compared to 2.331B last year(1/8/2013)…good for nearly a triple 🙂 Ok…maybe I’ve learned my lesson….unless somebody at Treasury  is reading my blog and screwing with me?? In any case…it was a pretty good day…at this pace we should have the entire debt paid off in no time 🙂

On the month…primarily due to our timing adjustments discussed before, withheld tax deposits are down 2%, Taxes not withheld are down 19%, and corporate tax deposits are down 9%. The good news is that Justice pulled in $1.7B today….is that another corporate fine? On the outlays side…thanks to the one less business day that is hurting revenue…outlays are down 15%. All in…this was a good day with a YOY revenue gain of $6B and a $3B decrease in outlays…good for a $9B improvement.