Amid all the DFL’s bragging about the economy – which Bill Glahn dispensed with earlier this week – let’s note that for the fifth straight month, tax receipts are off.
And not by just a little bit (emphasis added):
Minnesota’s tax collections for July have come in $69 million below expectations.
The Department of Minnesota Management and Budget released its monthly revenue Monday. It shows the state took in 6.6 percent less than was forecast.
And in the wake of the DFL’s bragging about the state’s ostensible unemployment rate?
The shortage was most acute in the area of individual income taxes, which were off by $36 million. Officials say some could be attributed to timing of tax payments or refunds.
Sure. Some of it could.
But most of it is attributed to the fact that under DFL rule, the state’s economy is slumping. Slowly – it’s a gradual thing, as economic trends always are – but definite.
And all the DFL’s happy talk is fermented BS.
Mitch:
Two ways to look at it.
One, in July we took $69 million less than we expected. Real people like us will immediately try to look at their budget and see where we can cut $69 million. Dayton and the democrats aren’t doing that.
Two, one of Dayton’s and the democrats claims is that they built up a billion dollar surplus. Really $69 million X 12 months equals $828 million. Since the budget is actually based on 24 months that equals $1.656 billion.
Oh, oh! Whoever wins the primary today have better have that in their stump speech for the rest of the campaign.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
It’s always been a pet peeve of mine that our Democrat Dominated Media Culture (DDMC) lacks the ability to look back at what Democrats promised in the way of tax revenue increases based on some ‘new’ tax or higher rate versus what actually came in.
My favorite example of this was the Oregon “millionaires” tax that was supposed to bring in significant new tax revenue from the ‘rich’. Yet the net revenue result was much less than predicted because many ‘rich’ people restructured their finances in a way that they could no longer be considered ‘rich’.
Here in Minnesota I wonder what the impact of people – like a couple of my neighbors – who have moved to NoDak, at least temporarily, to try their hand in the oil fields. These are guys that were making better than average incomes here that are now making 4-5 times as much there – and no longer on MN’s employment and income tax rolls. In both cases of the guys I know (a small sample size, admittedly) their employer did not replace them when they left.
Maybe the Democrats will propose that these guys have a responsibility to pay income tax here as they once enjoyed (and their spouses/family’s still enjoy) our above average education systems and wonderful parks & lakes. Something like a “Loyalty Oath”. Oops, too late…
http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/04/with-loyalty-oath-demand-crusade-against
It’s worth noting that if the shortfall in income taxes is due to the timing of tax payments or refunds, the state is more or less admitting that the shortfall is occurring due to the voluntary actions of those who can, by law, time their tax payments–which would be small business owners and wealthy people who take their income in other ways than a biweekly or monthly paycheck.
In other words, the rich have gotten the message that Minnesota is not a good place to do business, and they are acting accordingly. Watch for predictable income tax revenues from employees to start falling soon as these business owners hire outside of Minnesota, or do not hire at all. The state has more or less admitted that the worst is coming to pass.