Despite the continuous negative warnings from the
Division of the Budget that revenues would not meet expectations,
April revenues were stronger than what the Governor estimated.
Preliminary information with respect to Personal Income Tax
collections indicates that the Governor underestimated April
revenues by approximately $500 million.
Withholding:
The Governor projects that withholding growth will
drop off substantially this fiscal year, ending the year with growth
of only 0.6 percent. April's withholding substantially outpaced
this growth, coming in at a healthy rate of 6.1 percent.
Estimated Payments:
Total estimated payments, which consist of payments
filed with extensions and quarterly installment payments, grew at a
rate of approximately 21.7 percent for the month of April.
The Governor is predicting that total estimated
payments will decline by 2.1 percent.
Revenues from extensions have already surpassed the
Governor's estimate for the full fiscal year by $328 million.
Final Payments:
Final Payments, which are payments taxpayers make
when they file their tax return on April 15th, grew at a rate of
approximately 13.6 percent for the month of April.
Once again, the Governor is expecting a much slower
growth in final payments of 2.7 percent.
The Governor has a history of underestimating
revenues. In fact, for the fiscal year that ended in March, the
Governor missed his projections by more than $3 billion.
Since the submission of the Governor's budget in
January, last fiscal year closed with an additional $1.4 billion
above the Governor's projections.
The additional $500 million from April revenues, in
conjunction with the $1.4 billion from last fiscal year, results in
$1.9 billion of additional revenues.