It’s better than the alternative, but still nothing to write home about.
Sales tax receipts in July were up 2.2 percent compared to the same time the previous year, [Comptroller Susan] Combs said. Revenue increased $1.69 billion from July 2009, when Texas was in the middle of an unprecedented slowdown, she said.
The gains since April have been minimal — ranging from 0.1 in May to 2.2 percent in June and July — and not enough to erase the $1.39 billion year-to-date deficit in sales tax revenue compared to the first 11 months of the previous fiscal year.
“It’s still on top of a very bad summer last year,” said Dale Craymer, president of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association. “It’s a signal of a continuing, very slow recovery, but … sales taxes are still well behind where it needs to be. Two percent doesn’t change that.”
Combs said earlier this week that she didn’t expect another downturn.
But even with the apparent turnaround, the state has far to go to come up with the $1.2 billion gain in sales tax that had been predicted and was built into the current two-year, $87 billion budget.
Combs said she doesn’t think she will have to revise the state’s revenue estimate, however, thanks to continued growth coupled with better-than-expected performance in the oil and natural gas taxes.
So we’re doing better than we did in the worst year ever, which is something but not much. As I said before, the hole is still pretty deep, but at least it’s not getting deeper. Maybe this will be a catalyst for the Lege to take the idea of removing some sales tax exemptions a little more seriously.