West Virginia’s Secretary of Revenue Bob Kiss says there were few surprises for the state when it comes to tax collections in March, but not a lot of good news.
March 2016 saw no growth in personal income tax or sales tax revenue collections compared to March 2015. Severance tax collections were also down close to 40 percent compared to the same month in the previous year.
Total tax collections for March came in at just over $300 million, down about 11 percent from 2015. Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow says that’s about $28.6 million below the estimate for the month, and year to date, collections were nearly $150 million below estimates.
Muchow says the biggest deficit for March was the insurance premium tax, and the bright spot was the sales tax — where collections were 9 percent above prior year receipts, about $100,000 above estimates.