The federal government this January ran a surplus while collecting record total tax revenues for that month of the year, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today. January was the first month under the new tax law that President Donald Trump signed in December. During January, the Treasury collected approximately $361,038,000,000 in total tax revenues and spent a total of approximately $311,802,000,000 to run a surplus of approximately $49,236,000,000. Despite the monthly surplus of $49,236,000,000, the federal government is still running a deficit of approximately $175,718,000,000 for fiscal year 2018. That is because the government entered the month with a deficit of approximately $224,955,000,000. The $361,038,000,000 in total taxes the Treasury collected this January was $11,747,870,000 more than the $349,290,130,000 that the Treasury collected in January of last year (in December 2017 dollars, adjusted using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator). The Treasury not only collected record taxes in the month of January itself, but has now collected record tax revenues for the first four months of a fiscal year (October through January). So far in fiscal 2018, the federal government has collected a record $1,130,550,000,000 in total taxes. However, despite the record tax collections so far this fiscal year, and despite the one-month surplus in January, the federal government is still running a cumulative deficit in this fiscal year of $175,718,000,000. That is because while the Treasury was collecting its record $1,130,550,000,000 in taxes from October through January, it was spending $1,306,268,000,000. The levels of federal taxes and federal spending fluctuate from month to month, and it is not unusual—but not always the case—for the federal government to run a surplus in January. Over the last twenty fiscal years, going back to 1999, the federal government has run surpluses in the month of January 13 times and deficits 7 times.
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