Question 89

Does the Year-End Report present individual sources of revenue?
 * a. Yes, the Year-End Report presents individual sources of revenue accounting for all revenue.
 * b. Yes, the Year-End Report presents individual sources of revenue accounting for at least two-thirds of, but not all, revenue.
 * c. Yes, the Year-End Report presents individual sources of revenue accounting for less than two-thirds of all revenues.
 * d. No, the Year-End Report does not present individual sources of revenue.
 * e. Not applicable/other (please comment).

OBS Guidelines
Question 89 asks whether revenue estimates for individual sources of revenue are presented in the Year-End Report. The question applies to both tax and non-tax revenue.

To answer “a,” the Year-End Report must present all sources of revenue individually, accounting for all revenue, and “other” or “miscellaneous” revenue must account for three percent or less of all revenue. Answer “b” if the Year-End Report presents individual sources of revenue that when combined account for at least two-thirds of all revenue, but not all revenue. Answer “c” if the Year-End Report presents estimates of individual revenue sources that account for less than two-thirds of revenue. Answer “d” if individual sources of revenue are not presented in the Year-End Report.

1) "Other" categories
Watch out for aggregate categories, such as “other.” To receive an “a” answer, the “other” category has to be smaller than 3% of the total. If the “other” category is more than 3%, then the score should be “b.”

For example, in OBS 2019, Moldova had revenue categories including "other unidentified income", "other property taxes", "other taxes on foreign trade" and "other taxes on goods and services". Though the amount in the "other unidentified income" category was less than 3% of the total, adding the four "other" categories together and dividing by the total amount of revenues was greater than 3%. So on this question, Moldova scored a "b".

A basic rule of thumb, beyond adding up anything called "other", is to look at items that are listed in the plural tense (i.e. taxes, fees, duties, charges, etc.) as that usually denotes the sum of different items.

2) How should we define individual sources of revenue?
As a general rule of thumb, please follow the categories laid out in the IMF’s Government Financial Statistics Manual 2014, page 88 in the document, page 112 in the PDF.

To qualify as an individual source of revenue and not simply a category, the tax listed should be at the 4th level (e.g., “Individual income tax” and not simply “Income tax”).

For social contributions, the revenue source listed should be at the 2nd level (e.g., “Social contributions” would qualify as an individual source of revenue)

For grants, the revenue source listed can be at the 2nd level (“Grants”). For a classification under “Other revenue”, the revenue source listed should be at least 3rd level (e.g., “Property income”, “Sales of goods and services”, “Fines, penalties, and forfeits” all qualify as individual sources of revenue).