For the first month in this budget year, state revenues failed to meet projections in November.
State Finance Commissioner Richard Rosen says there are three parts to the individual income tax in November — withholding, estimated tax payments and final tax payments for those that delayed their 2015 tax filing.
“We underestimated the amount that would come in from the final payments and from the quarterly estimates and we overestimated the amount of withholding,” he says.
Rosen says the state did not get the mix right for the month so revenues were off — a timing issue, he says, not an indication of anything else.
“Year to date, major revenue lines are all running at or above what we projected. So we are up 3.5 percent year to date overall and I think that is important to reinforce,” he says. “The individual income tax line was the primary reason that the November report shows a negative for the month.”
Rosen says so far this budget year, the state is running a revenue surplus of $49 million and he expects that will grow through the rest of the year.
