Monthly Budget Statement

The Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays, or MTS, is the Treasury monthly budget accounting. It is prepared by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service and released after approval by the Fiscal Assistant Secretary. It is assembled from the central accounting system using monthly agency reports and daily Federal Reserve reports. It covers all federal receipts and outlays including off budget entities under budget rules.

Coverage is complete enumeration from administrative records, not a sample survey. It covers the United States federal government only with no regional breakdown. It does not measure debt stock, daily cash position, accrual forecasts, or seasonally adjusted data. All figures are nominal monthly and fiscal year to date cash totals with budget estimates for comparison.

It is normally released on the 8th workday after the reporting month after approval. Each issue holds a Highlight with Figures 1 to 8 and Tables 1 to 9 with schedules and notes. Tables show summary by month over two fiscal years with on budget and off budget results. Tables also show receipt detail, outlay detail by agency, financing means, trust fund effects, and source splits.

Further tables show monthly fiscal year detail, function splits, and explanatory notes. Each issue announces the following release on its final page with audience and disclosure texts. Published figures are revised when agencies report more data with the change footnoted. Payment timing follows calendar rules with benefits shifting forward when the first day is a nonbusiness day.

Tax deadline extensions shift receipts between reporting periods while due date patterns shape balances. The publisher states no market reading and no threshold apart from the zero line. Receipts above outlays mark surplus and outlays above receipts mark deficit.

Receipts rise with tax collections and outlays rise with benefit, health, defense, and interest costs.

• Individual income taxes: the largest receipt source from withholding and annual payments minus refunds, strongest in tax season.
• Corporation income taxes: taxes on company profits after refunds, arriving unevenly around quarterly estimated payment dates.
• Employment and retirement receipts: payroll taxes earmarked for trust funds and split between on budget and off budget parts.

• Customs duties: taxes on imports collected as tariffs plus excise, unemployment, retirement, estate, and miscellaneous receipts.
• Benefit and health outlays: monthly payments for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, income support, and veterans care.
• Defense, interest, and other outlays: defense operations and investment, net interest after trust fund interest, and program operations minus offsetting receipts.

Tax season timing can create surpluses that reflect calendar effects rather than fiscal direction. A surplus appears as negative financing with borrowing down and cash balances up rather than vanishing. Off budget operations are shown separately by law and added to on budget totals to display total federal receipts and outlays.

1. Net receipts: add gross receipts across categories then subtract refunds to get net receipts for each source.

1. Net outlays: subtract offsetting receipts from gross outlays for each agency then sum to net outlays.

1. Interest exception: interest on public debt issues uses accrual accounting when owed rather than when paid.

1. Headline balance: subtract total outlays from total receipts with positive as surplus and negative as deficit. Compute separately for on budget and off budget parts then add to the total.

1. Financing check: a deficit equals borrowing plus cash reduction plus other means with opposite sign for surplus. Cash increase shows as negative since it absorbs financing.

Outlays record on checks issued or electronic payment with withheld salaries counted as paid. Revolving fund receipts and reimbursements reduce gross outlays rather than adding to receipts.

The financing total matches the balance in magnitude with opposite sign and reconciles through liabilities and assets. Transactions outside the yearly balance also enter the reconciliation. The monthly deficit is not the change in national debt since debt and cash reconcile only through separate financing accounts.