On December 30th, the Utah State Tax Commission released their Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2021. From July 2020 to June 2021, the state of Utah collected $13.97 billion in tax revenues, which represents a 30.5 percent increase over FY 2020. Most of the growth is attributed to the income tax filing deadline delay, adjusting revenue typically intended for FY 2020 into collections for FY 2021. The Education Fund (which is primarily income tax) grew by 57.2 percent over FY 2020. Healthy, yet more moderate growth was observed in the General and Transportation Funds (both primarily sales tax), reporting increases of 13.9 percent and 8.4 percent, respectively, over FY 2020. The Tax Commission estimates that $735 million in individual income, and $60 million in corporate income, was shifted from the previous fiscal year into FY 2021 due to the filing extension. They estimate that without the extension, induvial income taxes would have increased 13.9 percent and corporate income taxes would have increased by 64.2 percent. It’s noted by Legislative Economists that after accounting for the shift in income taxes between fiscal years, a likely cause of the growth to state funds is federal stimulus actions.
Severance taxes for both Mining and Oil and Gas were down from FY 2020, albeit to differing extents. Compared to the previous fiscal year, Mining Severance was down 6.8% while Oil and Gas tax revenue was down 40.7% from FY 2020 due to decreased drilling activity in the state. In addition to the stats listed here, the Annual Report includes detailed information on collections, such as restaurant sales tax by county, percent income tax share according to income bracket, resort communities’ sales taxes collections, and more. Monthly revenue reports produced by the Tax Commission, along with the Legislature and GOPB monthly revenue snapshots are available online.