State and Local Tax Revenues Better Than Expected – By Michael Rainey (The Fiscal Times) / Dec 16 2020
Many economists worried that local tax revenues would fall sharply in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, creating a long-lasting drag on the economy as payrolls shrank and public investment declined, but state and local finances have held up surprisingly well, according to a report out this week.
“In the early stages of the pandemic we warned that a plunge in the tax receipts of state & local governments was likely to result in major budget shortfalls, which could total between $300bn and $400bn over the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years,” Andrew Hunter of Capital Economics said in a research note Monday. “With most governments legally required to run balanced budgets, that raised the risk of severe cuts to spending, which could weigh on the recovery for years to come.”
But that dramatic fall in revenue hasn’t played out. Tax receipts did fall sharply in the early days of the pandemic, but by less than economic models predicted, Hunter said. Income tax revenues were particularly resilient, reflecting the skewed nature of job losses, which were – and still are – concentrated among low-income workers, who pay less in taxes. Additionally, the massive fiscal stimulus passed in the spring provided replacement incomes for millions of workers, and the economic rebound in the third quarter helped drive state and local tax revenues significantly higher – higher, in fact, than they were a year ago.
“As a result, the revenues of state & local governments for FY2020 (ending on 30th June) were only about $30bn smaller than their pre-pandemic forecasts,” Hunter wrote, adding that shortfalls were expected to remain roughly at that level in the next fiscal year as well.
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