This afternoon the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council issued its monthly Economic and Revenue Update. Here are the key bullets on revenue from the summary:

• Major General Fund-State revenue collections for the June 11 – July 10, 2015 collection period came in $20.6 million (1.5%) above the June forecast.
• During the collection period, there were $7.3 million in net large refunds that were not included in the forecast. Without these refunds, collections would have been $27.9 million (2.0%) higher than forecasted.
• Cumulatively, collections are now $17.4 million (0.5%) higher than forecasted. Without the abovementioned refunds, collections would have been $24.7 million (0.7%) higher than forecasted.

Here is a chart snipped from the Update showing monthly seasonally-adjusted Revenue Act collections since 2004.

The real estate excise tax, which exceeded forecast by $21.7 million in the current month and $27.6 million cumulatively, accounted for all of the positive variance in overall collections.