State Tax Revenues Plunge In Q2

The latest confirmation that the US economy continues to deteriorate comes not from the Federal Government but from state-level data, where year-over-year growth in state tax revenues slowed in the first quarter to its lowest rate since the second quarter of 2014, according to the latest data published yesterday by the Rockefeller Institute of Government. Worse, preliminary data for the second quarter show an outright decline in state tax collections relative to the second quarter of last year.

As SMRA notes, state tax collections were up 1.6%, year-over-year, in the first quarter, the smallest increase since the second quarter of 2014. After adjustment for inflation, revenues were up 0.4%. Personal income tax collections, which account for roughly 36% of total state revenue, increased 1.8% in the first quarter, down from 5.1% in the fourth quarter. Sales tax collections - the second largest source of state revenue - increased 2.4% in the first quarter, up from 2.0% in the first quarter.

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