FISCAL NEWS
New York State Assembly

Sheldon Silver
Speaker of the Assembly

Herman D. Farrell, Jr.
Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee

May 2, 2001


April Revenue Highlights


Summary:

Despite the continuous negative warnings from the Division of the Budget that revenues would not meet expectations, April revenues were stronger than what the Governor estimated. Preliminary information with respect to Personal Income Tax collections indicates that the Governor underestimated April revenues by approximately $500 million.

April Revenues:

Withholding:

The Governor projects that withholding growth will drop off substantially this fiscal year, ending the year with growth of only 0.6 percent. April's withholding substantially outpaced this growth, coming in at a healthy rate of 6.1 percent.

Estimated Payments:

Total estimated payments, which consist of payments filed with extensions and quarterly installment payments, grew at a rate of approximately 21.7 percent for the month of April.

The Governor is predicting that total estimated payments will decline by 2.1 percent.

Revenues from extensions have already surpassed the Governor's estimate for the full fiscal year by $328 million.

Final Payments:

Final Payments, which are payments taxpayers make when they file their tax return on April 15th, grew at a rate of approximately 13.6 percent for the month of April.

Once again, the Governor is expecting a much slower growth in final payments of 2.7 percent.

Forecasting Accuracy:

The Governor has a history of underestimating revenues. In fact, for the fiscal year that ended in March, the Governor missed his projections by more than $3 billion.

Since the submission of the Governor's budget in January, last fiscal year closed with an additional $1.4 billion above the Governor's projections.

The additional $500 million from April revenues, in conjunction with the $1.4 billion from last fiscal year, results in $1.9 billion of additional revenues.


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