Important Terms

Public Budget

A separate program for PA expenditures and revenues for a specific fiscal year, which includes yearly estimates for PA revenues, grants, loans and other earnings, along with expenditures and various payments.

Citizen Budget

A simplified publication of the General Budget, which summarizes government ministries’ policies and approaches for the coming year, expressed in numbers in this budget. It familiarizes citizens with how expenditures and revenues are distributed  and allows them to track public spending. The average citizen can easily understand it because it is based on simple and organized data and uses charts, graphs and pictures.

Revenues

 include tax revenues, non-tax revenues, grants, and all other revenues obtained by the State of Palestine.

Tax Revenues

include taxes on income and profits, local taxes on goods and services, and any other taxes that are imposed occasionally.

Non-tax Revenues

include profits from companies owned by the Palestinian Authority (PA) or their investors (directly orindirectly), as well as licensing, professional, and insurance  fees and administrative fees, fines, seizures, and other non-tax revenues.

Clearance

 is the total revenue collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian National Authority and transferred to Palestine in Israeli Shekels. This includes income tax, value-added tax (VAT), purchase tax, and any other taxes and fees resulting from business exchange between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in accordance with the Paris Protocol on Economic Relations.

Expenditures

include current; capital; and developmental expenditures.

Current expenditures

 include salaries, wages, allowances, and the operational and transfer expenditures of ministries, public institutions, and executive bodies/agencies of the Palestinian state.

Operational expenditures (“Goods and Services”)

are the needed expenditures to operate public institutions (such as building-related fees, electricity fees, water, fuel, etc.). These expenditures are part of the current expenditures.

Transfer Expenditures

are expenditures allocated from the General Budget for the benefit of third parties, such as aid provided through the Ministry of Social Development (MoSD) to poor families and other cases.

Capital Expenditures

include the expenses paid for acquiring capital assets (e.g., buildings, lands, equipment, vehicles, etc.), as well as capital transfers related to projects. This item also includes expenses for capital development.

Developmental Expenditures

are expenditures that have a different nature from current expenditures in terms of the life span and the return on expenditures (such as infrastructure projects).

Public Debt

is the outstanding balance of unpaid financial dues that must be paid by the government.

External Public Debt

are the financial dues to be paid by the government to repay the money lent from foreign countries and international organizations and bodies, in accordance with the law.

Internal Public Debt

are financial dues to be paid by the government in return for loans acquired from government bonds, local banks, or other local financial institutions (Article (1) of Public Debt Law No. (24) of 2005).