DiNapoli: current fiscal-year tax receipts below projections

New York’s tax receipts for the first eight months of the fiscal year were more than $40 million below the latest projections in the state’s financial plan.

That’s according to the November cash report that New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released Tuesday.

The state’s general-fund balance is “higher than expected” at this point, but much of the difference appears attributable to the timing of payments, DiNapoli said in a news release.

“Consumption and use taxes remain the strong point in the state’s tax collections, while personal income and business taxes fell short of expectations once again in November,” he said.

The state’s finances are generally broken down into two main categories: general fund and all funds, according to DiNapoli’s office.

The general fund is the state’s “major” operating fund and accounts for all receipts for which state law doesn’t require a deposit into another fund.

All governmental funds include general, special revenue, debt service and capital- projects funds, along with funds from the federal government.

The November cash report found that all-funds tax collections of $42 billion through November were $2.8 billion higher than last year, but more than $40 million below mid-year projections, according to the DiNapoli report.

Personal income tax (PIT), the state’s largest in-state revenue source, totaled nearly $26 billion, more than 8 percent higher than last year for the same period.

Most of that growth occurred in April, according to the report.

PIT collections through November were more than $136 million lower than the latest projections. Consumption and use-tax collections totaled just over $10 billion, an increase of nearly 5 percent and more than $46 million over current projections.

Business-tax collections through November were up by less than one percent from a year earlier, the report found.

All-funds spending of more than $83 billion through November was about $112 million more than current projections, according to DiNapoli’s office.

The variance is primarily due to higher than anticipated spending for local-assistance programs outside of the general fund ($287.4 million over plan), which was partly offset by lower than anticipated spending from all funds for state operations (nearly $54 million) and general state charges (nearly $29 million).

Spending was $4.4 billion, or more than 5 percent, higher than the same period in fiscal year 2012-13, the report found.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com