The state’s first quarter, fiscal year revenue report indicates a growing economy. The revenue collections from July through September have shown an increase by 6.6 percent compared to last year. State Budget Director Linda Luebbering says the individual income tax collections showed positive growth since last month. “We had been seeing some very low growth rates in the individual income tax collections and after September, we’re up 3.7 percent. That still lags behind a little bit where we need to be, but certainly much closer to what was projected in the budget. So that’s the good news for the September revenue collection report,” she says.
However, Luebbering says Missourians are choosing to hang on to their money rather than spending it out of concern until the economy begins to take off again. Luebbering says the reason for the small increase is because individual income tax is the largest source of revenue for the state. “As long as that one is showing improvement, then that is good news. But sales tax, we know that people are still concerned about the economic situation at the national level,” she says. “But we believe when the economy really starts kicking off again, we believe that they’ll be making some decisions to go ahead and make some purchases… it just doesn’t appear to be happening yet.”
AUDIO: Mary Farucci reports. (1:00)
