Perdue's office attributed a big part of the drop to budget cuts at the Department of Revenue that caused about 270,000 income tax refund checks to go out after the start of the current fiscal year on July 1. That made the drop in total tax revenue for July and August this year much larger than last year.
Revenues for August declined by 16.4 percent, to $1.05 billion, compared with $1.26 billion in August of 2008. For July, they dropped 9.6 percent.
The revenue figures released Friday show that personal income tax collections fell by more nearly 21 percent in August or $132.9 million from the same month the year before.
For the first two months of fiscal year 2010, total revenues have fallen by about 13.1 percent from the previous year.
``Roughly half of the dip that we've seen is due to those checks going out later than normal,'' Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said.
The backlog of income tax refund checks has been cleared now, which means that September figures should allow a more accurate measure of the state's financial situation, Brantley said.
But even without the extra refund checks, this year's revenue collection to date would have been lower than last year. Brantley attributed that, at least in part, to the difficult economic situation, saying, ``We had not hit full meltdown stage by this time last year.''
Based on projected lower revenues this year, Perdue slashed $900 million from the state budget in July, a move that included ordering state employees to take at least three furlough days. The delayed mailing of income tax refunds was taken into account in those cuts, Brantley said.
Corporate income tax receipts, which grew about 10 percent in July over the previous year, were 1 percent lower in August than in the same month last year.
For now, there are no plans for additional budget cuts or a special legislative session, but the governor will continue to monitor revenues carefully, Brantley said.
``The governor never has a knee-jerk reaction to one month,'' he said. ``The cuts that we've already made are roughly in line with the trends and the numbers we're looking at now.''
http://accesswdun.com/article/2009/9/223147