Yesterday the state’s Economic and Revenue Forecast Council (ERFC) issued its monthly report on general fund revenue collections.

This report covers payments received between July 11 and August 10 for the sales tax, the use tax, the business and occupation tax, the public utility tax, the tobacco products tax, and penalties and interest (collectively the Revenue Act receipts), and it covers payments received between July 1 and July 31 for liquor taxes, cigarette tax, property tax, real estate excise tax, unclaimed property and other sources.

This report includes payments from monthly filers relating to economic activity in the month of May and quarterly filers relating to economic activity in the April-June quarter.

The total amount received this month was $2,310.9 million, $81.2 million (3.6%) greater than the amount expected under the forecast that ERFC adopted on June 22^nd. The amount received last month exceeded the amount forecasted by $101.1 million.

For the most recent month, Revenue Act taxes (primarily the sales, use, utility, and business and occupation taxes) exceeded forecast by $75.3 million (3.7%). Retail sales tax collections were up 3.9% year over year, while B&O tax collections were up 2.1%.

Here is a chart showing seasonally adjusted Revenue Act receipts since 2004:

For the month, Non-Revenue Act taxes exceeded forecast by $5.7 million. Within this grouping, real estate excise tax (REET) collections were $7.1 million (8.7%) greater than expected. The value of transactions subject to REET has fallen by 50% since the second half of 2021, as this chart shows:

Payments of court fees, fines and forfeitures into the general fund totaled $300 thousand (8.6%) more than forecasted.

The chart below compares year-over-year growth rates of general fund-state revenues to year-over-year inflation in the consumer price index:

Inflation has trended downward since mid-summer 2022, which is a positive sign. For 11 of the past 13 months, however, the year-over-year growth in revenue fell short of the year-over-year growth in consumer prices.

The August collections report is available here.