The US Daily Cash Deficit for Tuesday 2/17/2015 was $18.6B as strong post holiday revenues were overwhelmed by $37.5B of interest payments.
For the most part, our timing issues are behind us, giving us a fairly clean YOY comparison. Revenue is up a healthy $19B….About $8B of that is lower refunds….primarily timing related. I don’t really see a material slowdown in refunds due to “obamacare”…yet. Last refunds over the last 8 days of the month ran at about a $6.5B clip per day….if 2015 runs even $1B per day under that it could open up a big gap by the end of the month.
Outlays stand at +$5B, which is basically flat after pulling out the $6B of interest that slipped from January to February. Put it together and despite the $103B deficit, we seem on track to put a good month in the books as revenue is growing and outlays are flat. If we stay on this course, we have a chance to slide in under a $200B deficit, but it is really going to come down to refunds.
Shifting down to the second row of charts, 2015 revenue is looking ok…at +4%, with outlays pretty much flat.
