Corporate tax revenues made up for another month of disappointing receipts from personal income taxes in September, according to the latest report from the Vermont Department of Finance and Management.
Three months into Fiscal Year 2015, General Fund receipts are about $3.83 million, or 1 percent, behind revenue projections. The $327 million haul, however, exceeds General Fund receipts from the same period last year.
State officials are focusing on the year-over-year increase while remaining cautious about what’s to come.
“That is positive as an economic barometer,” Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding said in the monthly report. “We will be watching personal income tax receipts carefully in the next couple of months, as this component continues to lag expectation and could be a cause for a revenue projection downgrade in January.”
Even without a downgrade, administration officials and legislative fiscal officers are meeting this week to estimate the next budget gap. Preliminary estimates range from $90 million to $120 million. A revenue shortfall this fiscal year could increase the size of that gap.
Though personal income tax receipts missed their targets in September, they didn’t fall as short as they had in previous months. In August, the projected personal income tax revenue was missed by $4.3 million, or almost 10 percent.
Personal income taxes comprise more than half of the General Fund’s largest revenue stream.
Three of the General Fund’s other major sources — sales and use, corporate income and meals and rooms taxes — slightly exceeded expectations in September.
The offset helped the General Fund close September about $1.6 million ahead for the month, thereby eating away at the year-to-date shortfall of nearly $5.5 million at the end of August.
Solid sales and use receipts also helped buoy the Education Fund. Fiscal year to date, the Education and Transportation Funds are in the black and a little more than 3 percent ahead of where they were last year.
