“The federal government’s budget deficit was $175 billion for the first three months of fiscal year 2015, $3 billion more than the shortfall recorded in the same period last year, CBO estimates. Revenues and outlays were both higher (by 11 percent and 9 percent, respectively) than they were at the same point in fiscal year 2014. Total Receipts: Up by 11 Percent in the First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2015 Receipts through December totaled $740 billion, CBO estimates—$74 billion more than the amount collected in the same period last year. The largest increases in first-quarter receipts were in the following categories:

• Individual income taxes and payroll (social insurance) taxes together rose by $35 billion (or 7 percent).
  • An increase of $29 billion (or 6 percent) in the amounts withheld from workers’ paychecks accounted for the bulk of that gain. Growth in wages and salaries probably explains that increase.
  • Nonwithheld receipts, from taxpayers who received filing extensions for their 2013 income tax returns or who submitted estimated payments for 2014, rose by $8 billion (or 23 percent). That increase was slightly offset by a decline in receipts from unemployment insurance taxes, which were down by $2 billion.
• Corporate income taxes rose by $29 billion (or 42 percent). Those receipts included the final quarterly estimated payments for tax year 2014 for most corporations; they were due by December 15. That growth in receipts probably does not reflect a corresponding increase in taxable profits, however, because the size of those payments may have been boosted by the expiration of a number of tax provisions that reduced firms’ tax liabilities and that were later retroactively extended for 2014. (That extension was enacted into law, in Public Law 113-295, just days after the due date for estimated payments.) To the extent that receipts in December increased for that reason, corporate tax payments are likely to be smaller, or refunds larger, in the current quarter, when most firms make their final settlements for tax year 2014 and can take full advantage of the extension of those provisions for that year.”