General Fund finishes FY16 $39.1 million above forecasts

Members of the Economic Forum were told on Friday General Fund revenue collections finished Fiscal 2016 $39.1 million above projections used to build the budget.

Total collections adjusted for the tax credits collected — primarily by Tesla — were $3.69 billion. That’s just 1.1 percent above the forecast made May 1, 2015, and used to finalize the state budget for FY2016. Those tax credits were responsible for most of the benefit to the state treasury because the total credits claimed by business were $23.6 million less than the $78.8 million expected.

The rest of the difference comes from the fact collections before calculating tax credits finished the year $15.5 million above projections.

Without considering those tax credits, the weak spot in collections was in the sales tax that makes up the largest single part of General Fund revenue. Sales tax collections were just more than $1 billion, $20.5 million or 1.9 percent under projections. The Modified Business Tax and gaming’s Live Entertainment also were below projections but only by $200,000 and $1 million respectively.

The other big hit came from the 10 selected non-major revenue streams including such things as the cigarette tax, governmental services and liquor taxes. Those revenues came in nearly $30 million under the forecast total of $591.7 million.

But the Gross Gaming fee, the insurance premium, real property transfers, the new commerce tax as well as the minor General Fund revenue streams more than made up the deficit.

The commerce tax brought in $143.5 million, almost 20 percent more than the projected $119.8 million. And the real property transfer tax helped with $5.4 million more than forecast.

Actual collections for the roughly 50 other but much smaller General Fund revenue streams were a total of $24.8 million more than the forecast of $192.3 million.

The net of all that is $15.5 million above projections and, after adjusting for the tax credits, total General Fund collections are $39.1 million higher than expected.