The federal government collected a record amount of taxes in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2015, exceeding $2.88 trillion in revenue, according to the latest monthly Treasury Department statement. Despite the revenue, which is still a record amount when adjusted for inflation, the federal government ran a deficit of $529 billion.
Treasury receipts include tax revenue from individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, social insurance and retirement taxes, unemployment insurance taxes, excise taxes, estate and gift taxes, customs duties, and other miscellaneous items.
In the first 11 months of fiscal year 2015, the amount of taxes collected by the federal government outpaced the first 11 months of all previous fiscal years, even after adjusting for inflation. The 2015 fiscal year begins Oct. 1, 2014, and runs through Sept. 30, 2015.
Most of the $2.88 trillion the government collected came from individual income taxes, which comprised nearly half of that total, totaling $1.3 trillion.
The Treasury Department has been tracking these data on its website since 1998. In that fiscal year, the federal government collected about $2.3 trillion in inflation-adjusted revenue in the first 11 months. This means that since 1998, tax revenues have increased about 25 percent.
Although the federal government brought in a record of approximately $2.88 trillion in revenue in the first 11 months of fiscal 2015, according to the Treasury, it also spent approximately $3.4 trillion, leaving a deficit of approximately $529 billion.