Weekends boost
state tax haul

A strong economy and the so-called "double weekend effect" pushed Hawaii's overall tax revenues up 51 percent in November compared with the same month last year, the state Department of Taxation announced yesterday.

Officials said about half of last month's $117 million increase in overall revenues is attributable to the weekend effect.

Because the end of October fell on a weekend, some taxes due that month were pushed into November's collections. And November 2003 collections were lower than normal because the end of that month also fell on a Sunday -- pushing some revenue into December 2003.

Even adjusted for the effect, overall tax revenues last month increased by 24.7 percent from November 2003, the department said.

The state's largest source of revenues -- general excise and use taxes -- increased by $83 million last month compared with the same period last year.

This increase put the total revenue collected so far this fiscal year, which started July 1, at $1.56 billion -- an 18 percent increase from the same time last year, the department said.

Adjusted for the extra weekend last month, deposits for the current fiscal year would show an increase of 15.7 percent, the department said.

That's nearly seven percentage points higher than the revenues increase, 8.8 percent, projected by the state Council of Revenues for this fiscal year, which ends June 30.