The information available for “public finance” consists of two components:
Public accounts deal with revenue, expenditure, personnel numbers and balance sheet data for state and local government, social security funds and numerous extra-budgetary units.
National Accounts data, which is displayed in account form and can be compared internationally, describes the revenue and expenditure of the “general government sector” for the public finance sector. In addition to annual data, which is updated twice a year, quarterly data is also available for assessing the latest trends. Other aspects of these statistics include a detailed description of tax revenue and a breakdown of government expenditure according to function. An increasing amount of information is being compiled on the more comprehensive “public sector”, consisting of the general government sector and public corporations.