State Tax Collections Fall For 17th Consecutive Month

NASHVILLE – For the third consecutive month in the fiscal year that began July 1, state tax collections fell below budgeted estimates. Finance & Administration Commissioner Dave Goetz today announced that state revenue collections for October were $698.2 million, which is 1.53% below October 2008 collections. October collections reflect consumer spending in September.

“October is the 17th consecutive month in which sales tax collections have experienced negative growth,” Goetz said. “We are extremely concerned with the year-to-date negative growth in our tax collections, but we are committed to keeping the state’s budget in balance in a responsible manner during this extraordinary national economic downturn.”

“When the nation’s economy shows a strong improvement, Tennessee will likely follow, but there’s usually a good distance of time between national and state economic trends.”

On an accrual basis, October is the third month in the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

October collections were $31.7 million less than the budgeted estimate. The general fund was under collected by $24.2 million and the four other funds were under collected by $7.5 million.

Sales tax collections were $38.6 million less than the estimate for October. The October growth rate was negative 7.80 %. Year-to-date the growth rate is negative 8.47%.

Franchise and excise combined collections for October were $11.9 million, and they were $9.6 million above the budgeted estimate of $2.3 million.

Gasoline and motor fuel collections were $2.1 million more than the budgeted estimate of $71.8 million. However, the sales tax allocation to the Transportation Equity Fund was a negative $7.8 million. The net result was a shortfall in the highway fund estimate.

Tobacco tax collections for the month were over collected by $600,000, and October collections were $25.1 million.

Inheritance and Estate taxes were under collected by $4.6 million for the month.

All other taxes were under collected by a net of $800,000.

Year-to date collections for three months were $101.3 million less than the budgeted estimate. The general fund was under collected by $88.2 million and the four other funds were under collected by $13.1 million.

The budgeted revenue estimates for 2009-2010 are based on the State Funding Board’s consensus recommendation adopted by the first session of the 106th General Assembly in May of 2009, and are available on the state’s Web site at http//www.tn.gov/finance/bud/budget.html.