Hawaii’s July
tax revenues
up 6.2 percent

By Mike Yuen
Star-Bulletin

State tax collections for the first month of the current fiscal year totaled $231 million, an increase of $13.4 million, or 6.2 percent, when compared to July 1997, state Tax Director Ray Kamikawa has said.

"The state's largest revenue sources both contributed to the increase, with general excise tax and use tax deposits up $3.2 million and individual income tax deposits up $1.5 million," Kamikawa said yesterday.

"Without the effect of the state payroll lag, which pushed the end-of-June paycheck for state workers into July, withholding taxes and resulting net individual income tax revenue would have been about $4 million greater."

Meanwhile, state Budget Director Earl Anzai said the fiscal year that ended June 30 concluded with a general fund balance - the general treasury's equivalent to an individual's year-end checkbook balance - of $154 million.

That's $70 million more than expected.

It is all due to tax collections being higher than anticipated and cutbacks in spending, Anzai said.

When the current fiscal year ends June 30, 1999, the state's general fund is expected to have grown to $234 million as a result of continued government spending restrictions, Anzai said.

The one negative in July tax collections was in hotel room tax revenues, down 11.7 percent, or $1.2 million.

Under state law, one-sixth of hotel room tax collections goes to the convention center special fund, with 95 percent of the remainder going to the counties and 5 percent to the state general fund.

That means the state dip in hotel room tax revenues only amounted to $51,000, Kamikawa said.