Treasurer Tim Pallas has received an unexpected pre-budget gift: around $900 million in goods and services tax revenue his Treasury officials hadn’t bargained on.

The Commonwealth Grants Commission has recommended Victoria receive $16.83 billion from the GST pool in 2018-19, up from $14.989 billion in 2017-18; an increase of $1.841 billion. Mr Pallas said half of this amount was unexpected.

Just over $1 billion of increase is to compensate Victoria for its high population growth and for upward revisions to its population in the census.

Another $528 million is to compensate Victoria for getting less than its share of Commonwealth payments, mainly for road and rail infrastructure.