The prime minister, Scott Morrison, is ruling out a coronavirus levy to fund economic recovery as the federal government takes advice on how it can pay for the massive expense of controlling and compensating for the disease.

And in an embarrassing admission, the government is acknowledging it misinterpreted a report by the International Monetary Fund – and is blaming Treasury for a mix-up of dates.

Morrison said on Thursday the federal and state governments were considering synchronised economic rehabilitation measures to boost growth when the Covid-19 virus was suppressed.

On Friday on Melbourne’s 3AW he said a “Covid-19 levy” was “not something that we are contemplating”.

And he cast doubt on any tax increases to cover the $300bn the federal government has put into special programs such as the $130bn jobkeeper scheme.

“Well, increasing taxes doesn’t always grow the economy,” Morrison said.

“So we’ve got to get our economy up and humming. That’s how you get people back into work. And when people are back in work, then they are paying taxes.”

The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, on Friday outlined a fiscal balancing act.

Cormann told Sky News the aim would be “keeping taxes as low as possible, as high as necessary to fund the necessary services, essential services of government”.

“We are certainly not focusing on increasing the tax burden on the economy at a time when we want to pursue stronger economic growth and a strong economic bounce back,” he said.

Cormann acknowledged the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, had incorrectly said an IMF analysis of Australia’s economic future had not taken the jobkeeper wage replacement program into account when it warned of soaring unemployment.

He said Frydenberg had been making comments on Treasury advice.

“Treasury certainly understood that the IMF had fundamentally concluded the report before March 29,” he said.

“Certainly the understanding was that the jobkeeper package had not been fully accounted for.”

The IMF report took into consideration factors up to 7 April, a week after jobkeeper was announced but a day before it was legislated by parliament.

Labor is asking whether Frydenberg has read the report.

The global outlook report by the fund predicted Australia’s economy would shrink by 6.7% this year but rebound in 2021, although unemployment then would still be around 8.9%.

Morrison said on Friday the expensive programs introduced to combat Covid-19 and the heightened government intervention accompanying them would not survive the recovery.

“The idea that somehow we’re going to have nationalisation into the future and government subsidies forever and this is a watershed change in how Australia operates, that’s nonsense,” he told Sydney’s 2GB on Friday.