THE LATEST EXCHEQUER figures are in – and there’s some bad news for the government.

The tax take is over €500 million less than the government had predicted – 1.6 per cent below the target the government had set for itself.

The government received a massive €464 million less than it had expected in VAT this year – a worrying sign given the indications that Michael Noonan plans to increase VAT by 2 per cent in next week’s Budget.

The statement shows that the government received just over €34 billion from the exchequer up until the end of November, with the vast bulk of that – almost €32 billion – coming from tax revenue.

There was a shortfall of €272 million in the amount the government had expected to receive in income tax – despite the fact that the government received 7.9 per cent more than it did for the same period in 2010. Much of the reason for the year-on-year increase is because of the Universal Social Charge introduced in last December’s Budget.

The figures are for the first 11 months of this year.

The Department of Finance figures also show that the overall Irish deficit stands at €21.3 billion.

November is the most important month of the year for tax revenue collection with almost €5.5 billion targeted for collection, the Department of Finance said.