Report: Georgia led country in dwindling sales tax revenues
July 27, 2009 at 12:21 pm by Thomas Wheatley in NewsThe Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government recently looked at states’ revenue streams and discovered, whoa, hey, this appears to be the worst year on record.
State tax collections during the first quarter 2009 showed the sharpest decline on record, dropping 11.7 percent overall, according to an Institute report released July 17… Early figures for the second quarter reveal continued worsening of fiscal conditions for states.
According to the report (PDF), Georgia leads the pack when it comes to declines in sales-tax revenue.
Forty of 45 states with broad-based sales taxes had declines, and eleven states had double-digit declines. Iowa had the largest increase at 18.5 percent which is attributable to legislated tax increases. Georgia led the states with the largest decline at 16.3 percent followed by Nevada at 16.0 percent.
The institute predicts more budget shortfalls and financial hardships for states. Last Tuesday, Gov. Sonny Perdue told agency heads to trim their budgets once more to help fill a $900 million shortfall. Some teachers face three furlough days.
Not the best way to start the upcoming school year, but you work with what you’ve got.
July 27th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
A FairTax! would fix this, you know.
July 27th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Wrong! It’ll take an OX!
July 27th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Greetings all,
Hats off to Mr. Wheatley for having the stamina to plow through the Rockefeller Institute report cited in the article above. It’s an accountant’s wet dream crammed full of charts and graphs and lots and lots of multicolored squiggly lines. I shall remember it’s location the next time I can’t get to sleep.
One item of interest contained in said report was on Table 9 where Georgia and Florida information was arranged in a convenient side by side comparison. As most of you know, Florida has no state income tax and makes up for that deficit by hitting the corporate side of the house pretty heavily. Both states are suffering declines in revenue as is everybody else, but I haven’t heard of any teacher furloughs in Florida. Yet.
Perhaps the citizens of Georgia should look at the trade-offs that Florida has made and free themselves from the onerous state income tax. I could not help but notice that some of our esteemed state politicians are already ahead of the curve on this by failing to file their state taxes or allowing themselves very generous minimum rates.
I do not believe the fair tax is the solution or that the redoubtable Mr. Oxendine will even be the Republican Candidate in 2010. No state income tax falls in line with general libertarian principles and will hopefully be talked about by John Monds (L) during the upcoming Governors race in 2010.