April Tax Receipts Bring Smallish Smiles to State Beancounter Faces

So far, April has brought largely good news to state budget writers.

Through April 27, income tax receipts were slightly above $6.8 billion, the level projected in Gov. Jerry Brown’s January budget proposal.

Requests for refunds, however, were slightly above the expected $2.5 billion, according to a Franchise Tax Board daily  tally.

Bank and corporations tax receipts, predicted to be $1.6 billion were at nearly $1.5 billion on the 27^th.

Another $2.8 billion is projected to be collected by the Employment Development Department through the withholding payments employers carve out of employee paychecks.

Coming into April, state tax collections — including sales tax — were running $2 billion above the level projected by Brown’s Department of Finance for the current fiscal year which began July 1.

Any revenue above estimates helps reduce the state’s budget gap – pegged at $26.6 billion by the Democratic governor.

Income tax receipts represent 53 percent of the state’s annual revenue. Of that total, 16 percent was collected in April during the last fiscal year, according to State Controller John Chiang.

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