FRANKFORT, KY – State Budget Director John Chilton says Kentucky’s tax collections in July were up nearly 5 percent from a year ago.
Chilton said Wednesday that state General Fund receipts for July totaled $769.3 million, a 4.8 percent increase compared with receipts in July 2015. July is the first month of the fiscal year.
Chilton’s office reported big gains in income and property tax collections last month.
It says corporate income tax collections rose 36.6 percent above last July’s total, while individual income tax receipts were up 14 percent. Property tax receipts surged 56.2 percent. Sales tax revenues grew 3.3 percent.
Coal severance tax revenues declined 46.7 percent and cigarette tax collections fell 9.4 percent in July.
Despite the robust July collections, Chilton cautions that sustaining that revenue trend remains a concern.
Kentucky’s pension managers expected to get just under seven-percent back on their investments last year.
Instead, they lost money.
The Kentucky Retirement Systems don’t have a price tag for how much the half-point loss will cost them.
KRS says the retirement systems for 350-thousand state workers has almost 15-billion-dollars, but reports from earlier this year say the system is more than 19-billion-dollars short.
KRS managers say it’s been a “difficult year.”