March Revenues Fall Short of Estimates

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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndiana revenue fell short of the most recent projections in March amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Indiana State Budget Agency says General Fund revenues totaled nearly $1.1 billion last month, which is 6% lower than the December revenue forecast and 4.5% lower than the same month last year.
Collections in all categories, including sales tax, individual income tax, corporate tax, riverboat wagering and racino wagering, were all below the monthly estimate in March. The latter two were particularly affected by the state’s decision to close all casinos last month as a result of the pandemic.
“April and June have always been and continue to be our largest revenue months,” said Cris Johnston, director of the Indiana Office of Management and Budget. “We know that’s not going to be the case this year. Income Tax day has been moved back to July 15 and while that sounds just like a timing difference, it’s going to put significant pressure on our budget through the rest of this fiscal year.”
Johnston says we’ll start to see the signs of what the state is having to do to fight the public health emergency be reflected in the sales and income tax numbers for April.
“We do know that the descent will be steep and rapid. What we don’t know for sure is what the pace of the recovery will be. This will present challenges not only to the current budget, but future budgets in order for us to deliver to the best of our ability our priority services that we’ve committed to our Hoosiers and we’ve taken steps to prepare for that.”
Year-to-date, the state has collected $11.4 billion, which is still 0.3% higher than the revenue forecast and 4.1% higher than collections through the same period in the previous fiscal year.
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