Revenues Beating Estimates

For the fiscal year through March 26, revenues from California’s three major sources (Personal Income tax, Corporate tax, and Sales tax), totaled $62.6 billion.  This is $920 million above estimates.  Although sales taxes are trailing estimates, personal income and corporate taxes are well ahead of projections.

March is a telling month for the corporate tax, as the law requires most businesses to make their final corporate tax payments on or before March 15.  After accounting for calendar anomalies and processing delays, the days immediately following the due date tend to have the highest collections.   On March 18, 2013 for example, the state received $787 million of the $1.6 billion (49%) it would collect for the entire month. 

By March 23 of last year, the state had collected 95% of the month’s corporate tax revenues.  If that same collection rate applies in the current year, the state can expect to collect $1.4 billion from the tax, which is slightly above what the Department of Finance had estimated for net March receipts.