First Half of Current Fiscal Year a Record-Breaker for U.S. Treasury

It’s been another record year for the federal government so far, which is in the midst of its current fiscal year. At the end of March, when the government reached its halfway point of the 2016 fiscal year, it had already collected $1.48 trillion. One might think that this massive haul would help ease the nation’s federal deficit. However, despite the record intake, the federal government still finds itself in the hole to the tune of $461 billion.

According to the U.S. treasury Department, the amount of taxes it has collected from October 2015 through March of this year has been greater than any other previous fiscal year on record. That even takes adjustment for inflation into consideration.

The Treasury Department counts revenues from several sources, including individual income taxes, unemployment insurance taxes, social insurance and retirement taxes, estate and gift taxes, corporate income taxes, excise taxes and a few other items. Of the $1.48 trillion collected so far this fiscal year, the majority comes from individual income taxes, which accounts for nearly half of the total, at $675 billion.

By way of comparison, last year, the federal government collected a total of $3.24 trillion in taxes for the entire 2015 fiscal year.