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

This report covers payments received between August 11 and September 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 August 1 and August 31 for liquor taxes, cigarette tax, property tax, real estate excise tax, unclaimed property and other sources.

The total amount received this month was $2,154.8 million, $76.9 million (3.7%) more than the amount expected under the forecast that ERFC adopted on June 22nd. During the three months since the June forecast, cumulative collections have exceeded the June forecast by $113.4 million (1.7%).

For the month, Revenue Act taxes (primarily the sales, use, utility, and business and occupation taxes) exceeded forecast by $76.3 million (4.2%). These taxes generally reflect economic activity in the month of July, for which tax payments were due by August 25.

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

For the month, Non-Revenue Act taxes exceeded forecast by $0.4 million (0.2%). Within this category, property tax collections were $5.6 million (30.3%) short of forecast, while real estate excise tax (REET) collections were $2.3 million (1.5%) short of forecast.

Here is a chart showing the monthly value of transactions subject to REET since 2006:

Because of rising interest rates, REET taxable activity has declined from the levels seen earlier this year.

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 four months, the year-over-year CPI inflation has exceeded the year-over-year percentage increase in GFS revenues by 2.5 percentage points on average.

The September collections report is available here.

ERFC will meet at 2 PM on September 25 to update the revenue forecast. A Zoom link to that meeting is available here