Virginia revenue collections up 9.5% in December

This is good news....

RICHMOND- Governor Bob McDonnell announced today that December revenue collections increased by 9.5% over the prior year when adjusted for the December 2009 one-time tax amnesty program. This is the ninth month out of the last ten in which state revenue collections exceeded the previous year’s amount. It is the second month in a row in which year over year revenue growth was greater than 9%.

The revenue increase was primarily driven by withholding (+3.9%), corporate income (+3.4%) and sales tax (+8.6%- adjusted for tax amnesty) collections. Adjusted for the accelerated sales tax program, total state revenues grew 4.1 percent through December, slightly lagging the economic-base forecast of 5.2 percent growth. Because a number of factors can influence the flow of payments and monthly growth rates this time of the year, December and January receipts must be considered together to get a clearer picture of revenue growth.

Speaking about the latest revenue report, Governor McDonnell noted:

“In a tough economy we are beginning to see real signs of progress and recovery. We have added 67,900 net new jobs in the Commonwealth since last February, the third greatest amount nationally. We have just posted two months of back to back 9% revenue growth, in the midst of a string of nine out of the last ten months featuring increases in state revenue.

These are positive demonstrations of economic progress. However, this is still a difficult and uncertain economy. Over 280,000 Virginians are still unemployed. Clearly there is much more work to be done before all Virginians can find the good work they deserve. That is why we are focused this session of the General Assembly on utilizing savings and reprioritizations in our state budget to invest in job-creating core functions of government like higher education, economic development, transportation and government reform. Progress is being made, but we still have a long ways to go before economic prosperity and vitality have truly returned to every corner of the Commonwealth.”

The December revenue numbers are available here.