December state tax revenues are down by $12.6 million from forecasts, Mike Ferguson, chief economist for Gov. Butch Otter, told the Joint Economic Outlook & Revenue Assessment Committee. You can see Ferguson's complete handout to the committee here. Despite the bottom-line drop, "There is embedded in this some actual good news," Ferguson told lawmakers. "The good news is that unlike recent past months, both sales tax and withholding collections have either come in on target or ahead of target." Sales tax in December came in about $100,000 below the estimate, he said, "which is essentially on target for the month of December." In income tax withholding collections, he said, "We were actually $800,000 ahead of expectations." Those two pieces of the state revenue picture are the important, ongoing pieces; the December shortfall was largely due to a shortfall in filing payments and $4 million more than expected in individual income tax refunds for the month.

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