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

This report covers payments, mostly received in April, from monthly, quarterly and annual filers. For monthly filers, most payments relate to economic activity in the month of March.

The total amount received this month was $2,401.3 million, $16.4 million (0.7%) less than the amount expected under the forecast that ERFC adopted on March 20th.

For the month, Revenue Act taxes (primarily the sales, use, utility, and business and occupation taxes) fell short of forecast by just $1.1 million (0.1%). Net of large one-time payments and refunds, Revenue Act receipts were up 4.2%). Retail sales tax collections were up very slightly (0.03%) year over year, while B&O tax collections were up by 4.3%.

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

For the month, Non-Revenue Act taxes fell $15.6 million (3.9%) short of forecast. The largest shortfalls were in property tax ($19.8 million) and Real Estate Excise Tax ($9.3 million).

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

In 11 of the last 12 months, year-over-year CPI inflation exceeded the year-over-year increase in GFS revenues. Inflation has trended downward since mid-summer 2022. For the last month, the gap between inflation and revenue growth was 7.1%. Adjusting for the large one-time revenue payments and refunds noted above would make the year-over-year collections change positive 1.7% and would reduce the inflation/collections-growth gap to 3.7%.

The May collections report is available here.