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 June 11 and July 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 June 1 and June 30 for liquor taxes, cigarette tax, property tax, real estate excise tax, unclaimed property and other sources.

This report includes payments primarily from monthly filers relating to economic activity in the month of May.

The total amount received this month was $2,444.7 million, $101.1 million (4.3%) greater than the amount expected under the forecast that ERFC adopted on June 22nd.

For the month, Revenue Act taxes (primarily the sales, use, utility, and business and occupation taxes) exceeded forecast by $102.1 million (5.7%). These taxes generally reflect economic activity in the month of May. Retail sales tax collections were up 6.9% year over year, while B&O tax collections were up 11.9%.

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

For the month, Non-Revenue Act taxes fell a modest $224 thousand (0.04%) short of forecast. Within this grouping, real estate excise tax (REET) collections were $10.3 million (11.7%) 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 $806 thousand (18.1%) less 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. After 7 straight months in which year-over-year CPI inflation exceeded the year-over-year increase in GFS revenues, June revenue growth exceeded CPI inflation by 1.7 percentage points.

The July collections report is available here.