The final tally of July’s shortfall in the tax revenues stood at 196 million euros, something that sliced away at the “cushion” built up over the previous six-month period from better-than-expected results. The state’s coffers are still ahead by 533 million euros in revenues above the set target, following the disappointing July result. Missing the revenue target on an annual basis would mean that Athens would fall short of memorandum-mandated primary budget surplus goal as a percentage of GDP, which for 2016 stands at a modest 0.5 percent of GDP. While revenues targets remain on target over the seven-month period, the poor showing in July reportedly sounded “alarm bells” at the finance ministry. As “N” has previously reported, over the last five months of 2016 the government must collect 20.5 billion euros, 4.1 billion per month, on average. Nevertheless, July had always been cited as the most “difficult” month in executing the 2016 state budget, as the target was 5.098 billion euros flowing into state coffers alone. The final figure for the month was 4.902 billion euros. Income tax collection suffered, with 272 million euros (22 percent) of the first installment – following the first tax notices -- remaining uncollected.