(The Center Square) — The Sunshine State continues to outpace tax revenue estimates.
The latest report from the Office of Economic and Demographic Research shows that tax revenue for Florida in June outpaced March estimates by $432.4 million, 10.2% above previous projections. General revenue for fiscal 2022-23 also smashed previous estimates by over $1 billion, or 2.3%.
The report says that after adjusting total sales tax collections for audits, bad checks, local taxes, and distributions, as well as transfers made from the communication sales tax, total sales tax revenue was 11.1% above March projections, with Florida gaining an extra $293.4 million in revenue for the month.
State analysts also noted that Florida’s sales tax general revenue was $419.4 million or 1.2% above the estimates for the year and fell outside of what could be attributed to “noise,” further noting that June collections reflected activity in May, made up from several contributing factors.
This includes the adopted estimates from the Revenue Estimating Conference, which indicates that rebuilding efforts from Hurricane Ian has added an additional $16.4 million to the final liability. The conference estimated cumulative rebuilding costs will be around $591.7 million for the year, but officials continue to say cost estimates are understated.
June personal savings rates continued to be around 4.3%, according to the report, while the Consumer Price Index continued to increase, sitting 3% higher than June 2022.
The top sales tax components for the year were consumer nondurables, which was $62.2 million or 0.5% over estimates. Tourism was 1.1% over previous projections, gaining $91.5 million. Automobiles sales were 2.5% or $176.2 million above estimates.
Other durables gained $9.7 million or 0.5% over estimate, while building sales tax was 1.7% above projections, gaining an additional $44.8 million in revenue. Business sales tax gained $119.7 million, a 1.6% increase over previous projections.
Nine out of 17 income sources were also above conference projections for both June and the year. Overall, these income sources gained $173.1 million for June and $679.4 million for the year.
