The report has sales tax collections down $6.6 million from estimates, income tax down $9.8 million, and gaming taxes down by $500,000, but collections as a total for March were $29.3 million above estimates.
In a possible sign of things to come, gas tax revenues were down 20.59 percent from the same time last year.
For fiscal year 2020 that ends on June 30, revenue collections are up to $217 million or 5.74 percent above the revenue estimate. Compared with last year, collections added up to 4.97 percent more than last year’s collections at the same time ($189 million).
In March 2019, the state had collected $3.821 billion in tax revenues. Despite the coronavirus economic downturn that started in mid-March, the state has collected $4.01 billion in tax revenue toward its goal of $5.996 billion.
In November, the JLBC revised its revenue estimate upward by $137.8 million.
Despite being down for the month of March, sales tax receipts for fiscal year 2020 are up $35.6 million over last year’s collections, income taxes are up $71.2 million more than last year, and corporate tax revenues are up $48.5 million from last year.
Use tax is a 7 percent tax assessed on all out-of-state purchases and revenues were up, both for the month of March over estimates ($4.7 million), the year to date ($28.5 million) and $4.8 million over the same time last year. With more people statewide shopping online due to COVID-19, it’s likely that these numbers might increase in the months to come.
Oil and natural gas tax revenues are down from fiscal year 2020 estimates, as oil is down $4.799 million for the year to date (19.81 percent drop) and natural gas is down $1.285 million (45.07 percent shortfall from estimates).