State motor fuel taxes behind healthy July revenue report
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By Dave Williams, Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — State tax collections posted a double-digit increase last month compared to July of last year, mostly driven by gasoline and other motor fuel taxes.
Tax receipts in July — the first month of Fiscal 2024 — rose by 13.1% over July 2022, the Georgia Department of Revenue reported Thursday. Of $289.3 million in additional revenues, $179.5 million was due to the reinstatement of the state tax on motor fuels.
Gov. Brian Kemp suspended the tax from mid-March of last year through mid-January of this year after inflation hit a 40-year high. Aside from the motor-fuel tax revenue, state tax collections for last month were up 5% over July of last year.
The increase in tax receipts came after four consecutive months of revenue declines. State Economist Jeffrey Dorfman had predicted state tax revenues were likely to drop this year because last year’s huge increase in capital gains tax payments was unlikely to be repeated.
But after a double-digit decline in June, individual income taxes rebounded last month to rise 7.8% over July 2022. Net sales tax revenues were up by 2.1%.
Corporate income tax collections — usually the most volatile of the state’s sources of revenue — increased by a relatively mild 1.6% in July.
Meanwhile, Kemp announced Thursday that Robert “Bob” Buschman will succeed Dorfman as state economist on Sept. 1. Buschman serves as associate director of the Fiscal Research Center at Georgia State University.
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