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 December 11 and January 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 December 1 and December 31 for liquor taxes, cigarette tax, property tax, real estate excise tax, unclaimed property and other sources.

The total amount received this month was $2,274.2 million, $87.8 million (3.9%) more than the amount expected under the forecast that ERFC adopted on November 18th.

For the month, Revenue Act taxes (primarily the sales, use, utility, and business and occupation taxes) exceeded forecast by $43.8 million (2.4%). These taxes generally reflect economic activity in the month of November, for which tax payments were due by December 26. Here is a chart showing seasonally adjusted Revenue Act receipts since 2004:

For the month, Non-Revenue Act taxes exceeded forecast by $43.4 million (9.2%). Within this category, property tax collections exceeded forecast by $50.5 million (16.2%). This large positive variance made up for last month, when property tax collections fell $33.5 million (2.2%) short of forecast. (The percentage variance for this month is so much larger in absolute value than that for last month because the amount forecasted for this month was much lower than the amount forecasted for last month [$362 million vs. $1,506 million]. Property owners pay taxes twice a year, and most property tax collections are booked in the June and December collections reports.)

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

For 7 of the last 8 months, year-over-year CPI inflation exceeded the year-over-year increase in GFS revenues. While inflation has trended downward since mid-summer, the gap between inflation and revenue growth has widened.

The January collections report is available here.