Official estimate shows big increase in state revenue

On Tuesday the Legislative Fiscal Bureau released its revenue estimates based on the most recent tax filings in Wisconsin.

“The increase in general fund tax collections in 2021, particularly in the months of April and May, is unprecedented,” Fiscal Bureau director Bob Lang wrote in a letter to the Legislature’s budget committee co-chairs, Rep. Mark Born and Sen. Howard Marklein.

“Based upon the strength of collections and the vastly improved economic forecasts for the remained of this year and the next two years,” Lang wrote, Fiscal Bureau analysis shows that aggregate general fund tax collections will be $4.4 billion more than previous estimates for the next three years.

The estimate of the total amount of money in the state’s general fund has been revised upward by $816.1 million, Lang reports.

Among the contributing factors to that increase in revenue are higher- than- projected tax collections and lower- than- projected expenditures, including reduced claims for the earned income tax credit and a lapse in a $20 million appropriation for the state public defender’s office.

Under state law, half of the increase in tax collections must be transferred to the state’s rainy day fund.