Tax Revenue Still Trailing Projections

Revenues from the state’s three biggest tax sources continued to fall below projections in December but were $190 million more than the same month a year ago, state Controller Gray Davis reported Friday.

Davis said preliminary figures show that the state took in $3.77 billion in December from the personal income, bank and corporation, and sales and use taxes.

That was up from $3.58 billion in December, 1990. But it was about $152 million, or 3.9%, below what Gov. Pete Wilson’s Administration projected when the state budget was adopted in July, according to a Finance Department report.

The figures supplied by Davis show that the sales and use tax revenues jumped 27.4% in December over the same month a year ago, when the tax rate was one cent lower. Personal income tax collections were up 5.1% over a year ago. Collections from the bank and corporation tax were down 27.2%.

For the fiscal year that began July 1, state revenues from the three key sources now total $16.4 billion, Davis said. That is $560 million less than the Administration had hoped for.

Wilson will disclose the Administration’s latest revenue and expenditure projections on Thursday when he proposes a state budget for the next fiscal year. The budget will include the governor’s plan for erasing an 18-month shortfall that could top $7 billion.