Inflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $765 billion for the first quarter of fiscal year 2016, but the federal government still ran a $215 billion deficit during that time, according to the latest monthly Treasury Department statement.
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 quarter of fiscal 2016, which included the months of October, November and December, the amount of taxes collected by the federal government outpaced the first quarter of all previous fiscal years, even after adjusting for inflation. The 2016 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, 2015 and runs through Sept. 30, 2016.
The federal government collected $765,645,000,000 in the first quarter of fiscal year 2016. Most of the $765 billion came from individual income taxes, which comprised almost half of that total, totaling $351 billion.
The Treasury Department has been tracking these data on its website since 1998. In that fiscal year, the federal government collected $562 billion in inflation-adjusted revenue in the first quarter. This means that since 1998, tax revenues have increased 36 percent.
Although the federal government brought in a record of approximately $765 billion in revenue in the first three months of fiscal 2016, according to the Treasury, it also spent approximately $981 billion, leaving a deficit of approximately $215 billion.