RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The state’s tax general tax collections for May were up by 8.3 percent over last year, presenting the possibility of a year-end surplus once the current fiscal year ends in two weeks.
Eleven months through the current budget year, that puts year-to-date collections 6.2 percent ahead of the same point in 2011 — well ahead of the official revenue growth forecast of 4.5 percent on which budgeted spending was based.
The May increase is thanks largely to a nearly 17 percent surge in individual income taxes withheld from wages — a category of taxes which accounts for nearly 64 percent of all general revenues. The $871 million taken in last month tops the May 2011 total by about $135 million, the largest proportional increase since March 2010.
May is a significant month for revenue collections, Finance Secretary Richard D. Brown said in his monthly report to Gov. Bob McDonnell. One reason for the increase in Virginia’s most widely paid income tax is one more day to receive deposits last month than in May 2011, he said.
Clouding the prospect of a surplus, however, is 3 percent May dip in “nonwithholding” income tax collections, or estimated income tax payments paid largely by the self-employed and on dividends, Brown said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
“We cannot take a revenue surplus for granted at this point,” Brown said.
Last month’s nonwithholding decline leaves year-to-date collections 9.6 percent greater than they were at the same point a year earlier but short of the budgeted growth target of 12.6 percent. Nonwithholding collections comprise about 16 percent of all general revenues, “and has been the major component of a surplus in years past,” Brown said.
Corporate income tax collections were up by almost 55 percent over May 2011, and sales taxes were up by 2 percent.
The tax paid to record deeds, wills, contracts and lawsuits increased by 24 percent in May, the fourth month in a row the tax has increased at a rate of 20 percent or greater, signifying a substantial rebound in Virginia’s real estate market. From June 2006 through July 2010, during the depths of the mortgage industry collapse, Virginia’s “recordation tax” posted 50 months of double-digit monthly declines — nearly half of them decreases of 20 percent or more.
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Online:
Download May Va. revenue data: http://1.usa.gov/r0V8eq
