The general budget, where the government foresees expenses and income for a certain period. In national finance, the period covered by the budget is generally one year, called the fiscal year or fiscal year, which may correspond to the calendar year. The word budget comes from the Old French movette. When the Finance Minister prepares the annual accounts, he is said to open his budget or receive the documents and accounts.
• The role of the budget:Traditional functions:
The development of budgetary institutions in Western countries is largely the result of the power struggle between the legislative and executive branches. With the decline of feudalism, it became necessary for kings and princes to obtain resources for their projects from taxes rather than taxes. With the demise of old feudal relationships, taxpayers seek advice before imposing taxes.
This only refers to taxes, not spending. For centuries, parliaments seemed content to limit how much a king could receive, while allowing him to spend as he pleased. The debates of the 17th century did not culminate in the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights in which Parliament broadened its focus on taxation to include issues of controlling expenditure.
The history of many countries has turned into financial crises. In France, for example, the struggle between the monarchy and the nobility for control of taxes was one of the causes of the Revolution of 1789 that overthrew the monarchy and the nobility.
Modern Features:
During the 20th century, many economic activities were directly or indirectly controlled by different levels of administration. Thus, the budget assumes many other functions as well as a simple control of the total revenue and expenditure of the government.
Expenditure plans are well planned now, but there is a big problem in controlling the volume of public spending, and different countries have tried different control systems. Taxes are used not only to raise income, but also to redistribute income and to encourage or discourage certain activities. Public borrowing to finance recurring deficits or wars is so large that fiscal policy has a major impact on capital markets, as well as interest and credit rates. Because the budget is now so important to the national economy, there are many different procedures for determining the structure of the budget, which varies from country to country.
• Accounting functions in the budget:
Traditionally, budgets have been proposed to control the resources collected by the government and the use of these resources. Therefore, the budget announcement has played a role in holding the actions of governments at all levels accountable. Historically, the purpose of budgets was to ensure that expenditures and revenues were properly approved; More recently, budgets have been developed as a framework within which complex resource allocation decisions can be made more efficiently.
• Budget alternatives:
In response to the increasingly complex role of government, most countries have experimented with several different forms of budget preparation and presentation. The main ones are the executive budget, regular and capital budgets, program budgets and zero budgets, and full staff budgets. The variety of budgeting methods extends to the types of efficiency measures used to add value for money and to alternative methods of forecasting expenditure in terms of cash, volume and cost.
• Executive Budget:
The traditional executive budget contains the executive’s proposal to eliminate what the Magna Carta calls “separation or assistance” and use it for government purposes. This type of budget is designed to control spending and therefore focuses on the salaries and duties of civil servants rather than the qualifications they must achieve. The aim of controlling the administrative budget naturally led to the emergence of the principle that the budget must be balanced. Powerlessness means irresponsibility. Profit means imposing an undue tax burden on the public.
A limitation of the administrative budget is that some important items do not receive due attention or are left out altogether. Military recruitment is an example. Neither the Budget Office nor the Appropriations Committee is well equipped to oversee actual purchases of ships or aircraft. As a result, in most countries, large military expenditures are treated indiscriminately, while civil servants’ activities receive disproportionate attention.