On August 26, Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) released a memo on the preliminary general fund tax collections for the 2014-2015 fiscal year.

Using the Department of Revenue latest collection numbers, the final general purpose revenue (GPR) collections totaled $14.54 billion. This is a 4.3 percent increase over the previous fiscal year. LFB compared the actual revenues with their estimate in January 2015, which showed a .5 percent increase over the estimate. This was due to higher than projected tax collections in corporate income and franchise, excise taxes (cigarette, tobacco) that offset estimates that came up short in individual income and insurance company taxes.

Overall, compared to January estimate, the state’s revenue for FY 2014-15 is $71.4 million higher than expected. LFB issued a second memo to clarify that the $71.4 million will be deposited into the general fund and not partially deposited into the budget stabilization fund. As LFB explains in their memo, in 2013, Wisconsin Act 145 suspended the transfers of budget surpluses for the 2013-15 biennium into the budget stabilization fund.

In October, the Department of Administration will release the final FY 2014-15 general fund tax collections and department revenues and expenditures in the Annual Fiscal Report.