Posted on: Saturday, May 12, 2001

State tax collections continue upswing

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Capitol Bureau Chief

State tax collections continued on their roll last month, with the state on course to collect almost 9 percent more this year than last year.

That means that if tax collections hold up for the last two months of the fiscal year ending June 30, the state will have nearly $80 million that lawmakers didn't expect to have when they drafted the budget for this year.

The state Council on Revenues, a panel of economists that projects tax collections, predicted the state would collect 6 percent more this year than last. But as of April 30, the state had actually collected $2.64 billion, or 8.6 percent more this year than last year.

Income tax collections are growing by 4.4 percent so far this fiscal year, and hotel room tax collections are growing by almost 12 percent.

The general excise tax, which is generally regarded as a good indicator of the overall economy, is growing at a rate that is more than 10 percent ahead of last year's clip. The excise tax is also the largest single source of tax collections for the state.

State Tax Director Marie Okamura said the excise tax grew more rapidly than expected in part because of the "weekend effect."

March ended on a weekend, which meant that some taxes that normally would have been due on March 31 did not have to be paid until the following Monday, which was April 2. In effect, that pushed some of March's tax collections into April.