Nebraska should close its fiscal year with more money than expected in state coffers, following a strong April.
The fiscal year ends June 30.
Nebraska’s April general fund tax receipts, released Wednesday, show Nebraska collected 15%, or $86.5 million, more than its February projection. April is the biggest month for the state each year, Fulton said.
Under state law, tax collections that exceed the certified revenue forecast are put into the state’s cash reserve fund.
Fulton said “reasonable explanations” for the strong month are capital gains and corporate income that returned to the United States after the federal tax cuts. Nebraska collected nearly $52.5 million more in corporate income taxes than projected for the month, but that’s the most difficult to predict, Fulton said.
But those causes for the increases would be one-time things, Fulton said.
“While there are strong economic numbers that can be extracted from our figures here, much of this revenue is likely one-time revenue,” Fulton said.
He said another reason to not be too optimistic is that the floods will continue to have an impact on the economy.
“We should probably not count our chickens before they hatch,” Fulton said.
