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

This report covers payments received between September 11 and October 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 September 1 and September 30 for liquor taxes, cigarette tax, property tax, real estate excise tax, unclaimed property and other sources.

The total amount received this month was $2,113.4. million, $125.9 million (6.3%) more than the amount expected under the forecast that ERFC adopted on September 21st.

For the month, Revenue Act taxes (primarily the sales, use, utility, and business and occupation taxes) exceeded forecast by $131.6 million (7.4%). These taxes generally reflect economic activity in the month of August, for which tax payments were due by September 25. Here is a chart showing seasonally adjusted Revenue Act receipts since 2004:

For the month, Non-Revenue Act taxes fell by $7.1 million (3.4%) short forecast. Within this category, unclaimed property was $9.3 million short of forecast, while property tax collections were $5.7 million (21.4%) short of forecast. (The percentage is so high because most property tax collections are booked in the June and December collections reports.)

Over the last year, year-over-year growth rates of general fund-state revenues trended down, while inflation measured by year-over-year increases in the consumer price index have trended up, as the following chart shows:

For the last five months year-over-year CPI inflation has exceeded the year-over-year percentage increase in GFS revenues by 2.7 percentage points on average.

The October collections report is available here.