Surprise! Wisconsin Tax Revenues Down Again

Wisconsin's Dep't of Revenue reports are a bit late. Usually, they report revenues about 3 weeks after the end of a month.

This time, they lumped January AND February together. No matter; it's not good news.

All figures are compared to FY 2009.)

FY 2010 Individual Income tax (to date): OFF 6.1%

FY 2010 Sales/Use Tax: OFF 6.9%

FY 2010 Corporate tax: UP 34%

FY 2010 Excise Tax: UP 15.4%

FY 2010 Other Tax: OFF 5.8%

TOTAL FY 2010 General Purpose Revenues: OFF 3.7%

Altogether, revenues are OFF by about about $275 MILLION from FY '09.

Reminders: "Corporate Tax" is up partially due to the 'unified tax' provision. That's about $100MM that will not go into R&D, wage and salary hikes, or plant/machinery/equipment investments.

Excise taxes on tobacco were significantly increased by the Legislature.

"Other" tax includes real-estate transfer fees.

And the BIGGEST reminder: 2009 is an "easy" comparison. (There was a recession, remember?) A better comparo would be 2008, or 2007...