September Gains Boost Year-to-date State Tax Collections

Boosted by across-the-board September gains in all major revenue categories, Arkansas ended its first fiscal quarter with net revenues 4.2% above last year and 2.3% above forecast.

State revenue officials reported that the rise in individual and corporate income taxes and sales and use taxes was “encouraging” as nothing unusual accounted for the boost.

“September results were boosted by gains in all major categories of collections,” said John Shelnutt, economist and director for the Department of Finance and Administration’s Economic Analysis & Tax Research division.

“Individual Income tax was 7.3% above year ago levels and 4.0 percent above forecast. Corporate income was 13.9 percent above year ago and 12.3 percent above forecast. Sales and Use tax was 5.0 percent above year ago and 0.7 percent above forecast. Gains in the two economic-related revenue lines of Sales tax and Payroll Withholding were in-line with projections and encouraging for the state economy in the absence of any unusual collection factors,” Shelnutt said.

Year-to-date, which includes the July-September quarter, showed net available general revenues totaling $1.321 billion. That figure is $53.3 million, or 4.2% above year ago levels and $29.7 million, or 2.3% above forecast.

Other year-to-date categories included:

• Individual Income Taxes: YTD individual income tax collections totalled $691.5 million, $14.1 million or 2.1% above last year’s collections and $2.7 million or 0.4% above forecast.
• Corporate Income Taxes: Year-to-date corporate revenues totalled $108.1 million, an increase of $12.3 million or 12.9% from one year ago. Corporate income is above forecast by $10.9 million or 11.2%.
• Sales and Use Tax Collections: On a year-to-date basis, sales and use taxes total $567.3 million, an increase of $33.5 million or 6.3% from last year and $9.8 million or 1.7% above forecast.

You can view the full report at this link.