FY23 revenue surplus reaches $650M with $95M Income tax bump in January

Provided by Hannah News Service 

State tax collections yielded nearly $140 million more than expected in January, led by a $95.5 million overage in personal income taxes, according to preliminary data from the Office of Budget and Management (OBM) released Wednesday. 

The income tax generated $1.22 billion in January, compared to expectations of $1.13 billion, an 8.5% difference. 

Sales taxes were up by a more modest 1.9%, bringing in $23.3 million more than expected and reaching $1.24 billion for the month. That was roughly split between a $10 million, 0.9% overperformance in the non-auto sales tax, and a $13.3 million, 9.6% bump in the auto sales tax. 

The Commercial Activity Tax (CAT) brought in $116.3 million, $24.4 million or 26.6% more than expected for January. 

Total tax collections of $2.74 billion were 5.4% higher than expected for the month. 

So far this fiscal year, which began July 1, 2022, tax collections have reached $16.7 billion, which is $649.9 million or 4% more than forecast. The income tax constitutes the bulk of that over-estimate performance with nearly $400 million more in collections than anticipated. 

January tax collections were $169 million or 6.6% higher than the same month a year earlier. Compared to this point in FY22, the state has collected nearly $920 million or 5.8% more in tax revenue so far in FY23. 

The state is expecting to accumulate a total General Revenue Fund (GRF) cash balance of about $6 billion at the end of the FY22-23 biennium, some of which is going toward cash spending on capital projects in lieu of issuing debt, and much of which Gov. Mike DeWine has proposed for various one-time uses in his FY24-25 proposal.