Withholding Growth Continued to Improve in August
Posted on August 30, 2020 Federal revenues from withholding of income and payroll taxes continued to improve in August, as the decline on a year-over-year basis (that is, comparing the amounts to those from the same month of a year ago) was an estimated 2.4 percent, compared to a decline of 3.7 percent in July […]
Two Charts Showing Nationwide Unemployment Benefit Payments Are Very Slowly Starting To Move Back Up Again
Posted on August 27, 2020 About a month after the expiration of the extra $600 weekly federal unemployment benefit, we have seen total benefits paid start to move back up again. A five-day moving average of the total national amount of payments of state and federal unemployment benefits had reached about $5 billion per day […]
Revenues Down By 2 Percent for the Fiscal Year Through August 20. Down 2 to 3 Percent for the Full Fiscal Year?
Posted on August 23, 2020 Summary We estimate that total federal revenues for the fiscal year-to-date, through August 20, are down by about 2 percent compared to last year’s amounts at this same point. Based on recent trends, we extrapolate that weakness in revenues in the remaining 5-1/2 weeks of the fiscal year will push […]
Retroactive Business Provisions in the CARES Act: Should We Really See Lots of Refunds Before the Fiscal Year Ends?
Posted on August 18, 2020 Summary The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that two business provisions of the CARES Act allowing for retroactive use of losses would reduce revenues by a combined $155 billion in fiscal year 2020. The timing of the revenue effects from the provisions is rather complicated, but I’m skeptical that we’ll […]
Withholding Remittances Anomalously Jumped in Mid-July and Have Moved Back Down…Mostly
Posted on August 14, 2020 We posted last month about the anomalous surge in withholding tax remittances in mid-July, timed just as a large amount of delayed income tax payments were being remitted to the Treasury. We thought it quite possible that taxpayers didn’t correctly identify which taxes were being paid and that the Treasury […]
Daily Treasury Department Data Show the Decline Underway in Unemployment Insurance Benefit Payments
Posted on Monday, August 10, 2020 More than a week or two after the expiration of the extra $600 weekly federal unemployment insurance benefit that was enacted in March in the CARES Act, we can see the clear drop-off in benefit payments. The Treasury Department releases daily the nationwide amount of combined state and federal […]
Total Receipts Rebounded in July, But Remain Below Year-Ago Amounts for the Fiscal Year to Date
August 3, 2020 Federal tax receipts for July are now in the books, and the IRS has completed counting all the money deposited with tax returns filed by this year’s extended July 15 deadline. I calculate that total receipts from all sources for this fiscal year to date, thus from October 2019 through July 2020, […]
NIPA Annual Revisions are Released: Minimal Wage and Salary Revisions, Big Profit Revisions
Posted on August 1, 2020 On Thursday of this past week the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its first estimate of economic activity for the second quarter of this year, garnering big headlines, but they also released their lesser appreciated annual revisions to the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs) that go back several […]