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December 18, 2014      5:05 PM

Greenfield: The Revenue Estimate, The Prequel

Economist Stuart Greenfield, Ph.D., says that even though crude oil prices have steeply dropped, tax collections for this biennium should be higher than the FY12-13 biennium.

Prior to the 84th Legislative session the Comptroller of Public Accounts will present the Biennial Revenue Estimate (BRE) for the 2015-2016 Biennium. With knowledge of FY14 revenue collections and revenue collections through the 1st quarter of FY15, one should have a basis to evaluate how Comptroller Combs/Hegar’s estimate for FY15 is tracking.

Should tax collection growth continue at its current growth rate, we should expect $54.0 billion in tax collections in FY15.  This compares to the current FY15 estimate of $49.8 billion.  This will result in total tax collections for the FY14-15 biennium of $105.0 billion, $6.2 billion more than in the current estimate.  Total state revenue in FY15 should be $2.6 billion more than in the current estimate.

Below is an analysis of tax collections for FY14 and for the first three months of fiscal year 2015.  Also shown is the current estimate for FY15 from the 2014-15 Certification Revenue Estimate (CRE). 

One should note that except for the cigarette tax, every state tax collected in FY14 exceeded their FY14 estimate. In fact, except for sales tax and cigarette tax, receipts in FY14 for all other taxes exceed the current estimate for FY15.  Tax collections in FY14 exceeded the estimate for FY14 by $2.1 billion, and exceed the FY15 estimate by $1.2 billion.

The complete column from Dr. Stuart Greenfield can be found in the R&D Department.

By Stuart Greenfield, Ph.D.