Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON (WMAL) – Revenues in Maryland are lower than originally projected for this financial year and the next according to Comptroller Peter Franchot. The Maryland Board of Revenue Estimates voted Wednesday to decrease the revenue projections for the current fiscal year (FY 18) by $53 million and for the financial year that starts in July (FY 19) by $73.5 million.
Franchot told WMAL these figures sound like a lot of money, but aren’t that much when compared to the size of the budget and tax collections as a whole. The revenue for the current fiscal year is only down 0.3 percent from earlier projections.
“But it’s a significant signal that we need to be fiscally prudent and cautious,” Franchot said.
He blamed lower than expected revenues in part on more people shopping online on sites that are not required to charge state sales tax. Amazon does charge Maryland sales tax, but he said other big Internet retailers don’t.
“All of the craziness in Washington is causing we think our federal employees and other private sector employees who are linked to the federal government, causing anxiety for them and restricting their spending,” said Franchot.
Revenue estimates for all the post-recession years look about the same according to Franchot. He said the state needs to stop pining for the old years of economic growth. Now retail sales growth is about 2 to 2.5% a year down from 3 to 5 percent before the recession .
The good news is, Franchot doesn’t anticipate major cuts or tax and fee increases in the budget for the financial year starting in July.
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