State tax receipts in June were “flat” according to the latest information from the Legislative Services Agency. June was the final month of the state fiscal year and Jeff Robinson, a tax analyst for the Legislative Service Agency, says state tax collections for the past 12 months were $185 million below the official estimate.
“We have had plenty of time to plan for it and we had excess revenue above expenditures for this particular fiscal year,” Robinson says, “so while not a good thing, it’s not as it might be in a different fiscal year.”
Robinson says it’s too early to calculate how much money was left unspent in the state’s 12-month-long budgeting year. The accounts won’t officially be closed until September.
Personal income tax payments to the state were down 2.7 percent over the past 12 months. Robinson says that’s mainly because of federal tax law changes.
“It’s not a great year for personal income, but it’s not a bad year, once you adjust for that,” Robinson says.
Farm income is down this year compared to last as well.
“And you can see that when farm tax returns were filed, this was not as good a year,” Robinson says.
Sales and use tax payments to the State of Iowa were up $97 million for the fiscal year. State receipts surpassed $6.6 billion for the past 12 months.