Notably, Naftogaz ignored the request. A suspicion arises that it was precisely the "gas" money together with the artificial understatement of the plan that helped the Cabinet of Ministers meet the January budget for revenues. Consequently, the government continues to live beyond its means.\n\nOn Wednesday, the State Treasury reported on the fulfillment of the January budget for revenues.\n\n"In January 2010, revenues to the general and special funds of the state budget were mobilized in the amount of 13,872.4 million hryvnias, or 100% of the planned indicators for January 2010. In January 2010, 12,456.8 million hryvnias were mobilized to the general fund of the state budget, or 100.4% of the temporary monthly schedule of revenues of the general fund of the budget," the agency's report states.\n\nThe Treasury does not report from which sources the overfulfillment occurred. However, it is obvious that the government continued the practice of 2009 by understating the revenue collection plan in January 2010.\n\nAs is known, the 2010 budget has not been adopted, and a temporary schedule is in effect instead. According to the Budget Code, each month of 2010 the government must collect into the general fund of the budget 1/12 of the 2009 plan, or 15.4 billion hryvnias each month.\n\nFor comparison: the January plan amounted to only 12.4 billion hryvnias, that is, it was artificially understated by 3 billion. But that is not all.\n\n"The government has not published detailed information on revenue sources, and this suggests that the good budget fulfillment indicators may be the result of incomplete VAT reimbursement," believes Andriy Nesteruk, an analyst at Phoenix Capital.\n\nAnother possible source of the budget's "overfulfillment" for revenues is tax receipts from Naftogaz Ukrainy.\n\nThe very first suspicion fell on deferred VAT. As is known, in May 2009, by a government decision, the company received a deferral for the payment of 6.7 billion hryvnias of VAT. There were other decisions as well, as a result of which the total deferral amounted to 9.8 billion.\n\nFor this money, gas was pumped into underground storage facilities in 2009. Naftogaz was obligated to pay it in 2010.\n\nHowever, according to Ekonomichna Pravda data, in January Naftogaz paid only 1.6 billion hryvnias of tax, collecting 2.4 billion in total. That is, the version regarding the return of deferred VAT is not confirmed.\n\nHowever, the version regarding budget fulfillment at the expense of Naftogaz is too early to dismiss. As is known, throughout the past year the company transferred increased tax plans to the budget, although its financial situation significantly deteriorated.\n\nThat is, it cannot be ruled out that some artificial operations were carried out for the purpose of filling the budget. For example, for this purpose the government could have cashed in part of its domestic state loan bonds contributed to the charter capital of Naftogaz at the end of 2009 at the expense of State Treasury funds.\n\nHowever, there is another option. On January 26, the long-awaited shareholders' meeting of Ukrnafta took place. In exchange for retaining control over the state company, businessman Ihor Kolomoisky agreed to give Naftogaz state dividends in the amount of almost 5 billion hryvnias.\n\nIt is not excluded that part of this money or all of it went into budget revenue. For example, under the same pretext - as payment of deferred VAT for 2009.\n\nNotably, Naftogaz ignored Ekonomichna Pravda's request. A suspicion arises that it was precisely the "gas" money together with the artificial understatement of the plan that helped the Cabinet of Ministers meet the January budget for revenues. Consequently, the government continues to live beyond its means.\n\nGeneral fund deficit - 583 million\n\nThere is one more point. The government's actions on the state debt market allow determining the size of the general fund budget deficit in January - the excess of expenditures over received revenues. It amounted to 583 million hryvnias.\n\nThe thing is that since the beginning of January, the Finance Ministry has already held five auctions for the placement of domestic state debt bonds, including three in the last seven days.\n\nAt first, such haste could be explained by the fact that on February 10 the Finance Ministry will need to redeem domestic state loan bonds worth 1.7 billion hryvnias.\n\nIt began collecting funds for this back in January. Throughout the entire past month, the state economized - offering banks reduced interest rates on bonds. On average, securities were placed at 21-825% per annum, depending on the term.\n\nInstead of paying, on January 25 Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko personally came to an expanded meeting of the NBU board, which was attended by representatives of the country's largest banks. She asked financial institutions to buy government securities.\n\n"The premier asked how the banks were doing with liquidity. The discussion concerned the purchase of regular domestic state loan bonds for 6, 9, 24 and 36 months at upcoming primary auctions. They also looked at how things were in the countryside: so as not to drive resources into securities and then be left without money for loans to farmers," said the deputy head of a large bank who participated in the meeting.\n\nDespite all these efforts, at 21-25% the Finance Ministry collected only 1.17 billion hryvnias. Therefore, at the auction it had to increase the yield.\n\nBut something else turned out to be strange. Instead of collecting the needed 600 million, the government took twice as much.\n\n"The Finance Ministry went for raising the cut-off rate on three-year securities to 26% per annum, which ensured a sharp increase in placement volumes. As a result, three-year securities were sold for 1 billion hryvnias at par," noted Serhiy Fursa, an analyst at Astrum Investment Management.\n\nIn total, at the last auction the government collected 1.161 billion hryvnias. According to Fursa's estimates, demand for the securities was market-based. In other words, they bought more thanks to the fact that the state offered a higher interest rate on the bonds.\n\n"High demand for three-year securities allows us to state the fact of non-residents returning to the domestic debt market. The high level of yield and the reduction of devaluation expectations makes Ukrainian domestic state debt the most attractive among emerging markets," noted the analyst.\n\nThus, in 2010 the Finance Ministry attracted over 2.1 billion hryvnias, fully covering the government's needs for refinancing domestic state loan bonds worth 1.7 billion hryvnias.\n\nIt turns out that following the results of the February 2 auction, the Finance Ministry attracted an excess 583 million hryvnias. In other words, in January the government spent extra money. Most likely, the half-billion is the real state budget deficit in January.