North Dakota Tax Revenues Up 16.7% Through February

The latest general fund revenue numbers are out from North Dakota’s Office of Management and Budget. Last month’s report showed biennium-to-date numbers up 19.2 percent, or more than $298 million. This month that’s down a bit. Revenues through February are up 16.2 percent, or $282 million.

Here’s a chart showing the cumulative monthly revenues to date compared to the previous three bienniums.

As you can see, the 2013-15 biennium revenues are coming in more slowly than last biennium. But “slowly” is only a word that applies because last biennium saw a veritable explosion in revenues. Compared to the 2007-09 biennium, revenues through February are up a whopping 120 percent.

Perhaps the most remarkable number in this report are the income tax numbers. In 2008 North Dakota voters defeated a ballot measure backed by the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity which would have reduced state income tax rates by 50 percent, and corporate income tax rates by 15 percent. But starting in 2009, legislators have, in successive sessions, implemented a series of more modest cuts that have reduced corporate and personal income tax to below where the 2008 measure would have set them.

But despite those reductions, the most recent of which were $250 million in corporate and personal income tax cuts passed last year, income tax revenues continue to soar. Biennium to date personal and corporate income tax revenues are up 32.7 and 41.5 percent, respectively, over last biennium.

Here’s the full revenue report: