Originally published by The Center Square.
(The Center Square) – The total taxes collected by Tennessee in the first month of the new fiscal year continued last year’s increasing trend.
Tennessee collected $1.5 billion in August, which was $130.5 million more than what was budgeted and $100.6 million more than what the state collected in August 2021, despite a moratorium on personal care and autocycle registrations.
Since the numbers are done on an accrual basis, they represent taxes for sales and activities in August.
“Sales and use taxes, representing July taxable sales activity, were the largest contributor to monthly growth and fell in-line with the July national retail sales growth reported at 10.3%,” said Finance and Administration Commissioner Jim Bryson.
Bryson said that, while the August numbers continued to show an increase, the 7.1% growth rate was lower than the 22.1% growth rate from last fiscal year, when the state finished $4.6 billion over the original budgeted estimate for the year.
“As state tax collections begin to moderate from last year’s extraordinary growth, we will continue to carefully monitor the economy and consumer demand to ensure we meet our monthly budgeted estimates,” Bryson said.
Sales taxes were $118.4 million more than the estimates with $1.15 billion collected. In August 2021, $1.04 billion was collected.
Privilege taxes were $5.9 million below estimates for August.
“A $1.7 million loss in privilege tax growth can be attributed to a reduction in realty and mortgage tax transactions due to rising interest rates,” Bryson said.
