Commonwealth Posts 12.6% Revenue Growth in January

The following is a release by the McDonnell Administration.

Governor Bob McDonnell announced today that January revenue collections increased by 12.6% over the prior year. This is the tenth month out of the last 11 in which state revenue collections exceeded the previous year’s amount. Excluding tax amnesty revenue, it is the third month in a row in which year-over-year revenue growth was greater than 9%.

The revenue increase was primarily driven by withholding (+5.4%), nonwitholding (+10%) and sales tax (+5.7%) collections. Adjusted for the accelerated sales tax program, total state revenues grew 5.4 percent through January, slightly ahead of the economic-base forecast of 5.2 percent growth. January is a significant month for revenue collections.Speaking about the latest revenue report, Governor McDonnell noted,

 “These economic indicators are showing a trend of progress and recovery.  Unemployment numbers continue falling, and Virginia has added 55,400 jobs since February 2010, the fourth highest number of net new jobs in the nation. The increases in revenue growth and reductions in unemployment are signs that Virginia is beginning to emerge from the recession and that our fiscally responsible management is making a positive impact on our economic recovery. Still, nearly 280,000 Virginians remain unemployed and this is unacceptable. We have much more work to do to get Virginians back to work and to continue growing our economy.”

 The Governor continued, “Working closely with the General Assembly, our bipartisan economic development efforts and job creation measures are finding broad support this session. We must make government smaller and more efficient, and focus our investments in core functions of government like higher education, economic development and transportation which help create the conditions conducive to private sector job creation.  We must keep taxation, regulation and litigation to a minimum to free our job creators and entrepreneurs to innovate, create and grow. Maintaining fiscal responsibility in our state budget is necessary to ensure that this early recovery takes hold and is sustained for the long term."