The federal budgetary surplus was a slim $100 million in November as spending rose faster than revenues, the Finance Department said Friday.

That compared with a surplus of $500 million in November a year earlier.

The department said revenues rose by $700 million in November — mainly because of higher personal and corporate income tax revenues.

Program expenses were $1-billion higher than a year ago as transfer payments grew.

The November budgetary surplus brought the total surplus for the first eight months of the fiscal year to $6.7 billion — down $200 million from the same period in the 2006-07 fiscal year.

In October, the federal treasury recorded a $2.7 billion deficit as the tax cuts announced that month were added into the mix.

The Conservative government's Oct. 30 economic statement brought in a couple of tax cuts that were retroactive to the start of 2007 — one cut the lowest personal income tax rate from 15.5 per cent to 15 per cent; the other raised the amount that people were allowed to earn before paying tax.

Those two measures accounted for a large part of the $1.7-billion reduction in budgetary revenues that month.

The Finance Department estimated last October that even with the tax cuts announced at that time, the country would still run an underlying budget surplus of $11.6 billion in the 2007-08 fiscal year.

Subtract a planned $10-billion debt paydown and the net surplus would fall to $1.6 billion.