The Government took €1.2bn more in taxes than expected in 2014. The total tax take of €41.3bn is almost four per cent ahead of target.
The Department of Finance has published the Exchequer figures for December and it shows that, despite massive bailouts at the end of the year to cover over-spending in Health and other Departments, overall Government expenditure was €840m more than budgeted for.
At the end of December the coalition had to borrow €8.2bn to make up the difference between what Ireland had spent compared to tax revenue.
But that was €3.3bn better than the 2013 total of €11.5bn, and was actually €4.6bn less when one-off transactions were excluded.
Nearly all taxes proved better than expected - with Capital Gains Tax outperforming estimates by more than 40% and income tax 8.9 per cent above estimates and VAT up 7.9 per cent.
The one exception was the Local Property Tax - finance chiefs that's down to bad estimates on their parts, rather than people not paying it.
Corporation tax raised €4.6bn in the previous 12 months.
Under Troika rules the deficit for last year was to be below 4.7% - exact figures will be dependent on GDP growth calculated by the CSO, but the Department of Finance estimates it will probably be as low as 4%.
