Tax Withholding Pops (Upwardly) in September: Outlier or Indicator?
Posted on October 6, 2021 Income and payroll taxes withheld from paychecks (so-called tax withholding), which is based largely on wages paid to workers and is remitted daily to the Treasury Department, popped up in September, probably enough to be considered an outlier, but these days who knows. We measure that tax withholding was up […]
Full Year Fiscal Year 2021 Receipts: Big Increase Brought About By Fiscal Stimulus and Strong Growth in Incomes of Higher-Income Taxpayers
Posted on October 4, 2021 The end of the federal fiscal year (on September 30) is always a good time to take stock of receipts for the year and what they tell us about the economy. This post will sort of bring together our different posts over time about different revenue sources. In short, federal […]
Quarterly Individual Income Tax Payments Remained Very Strong in September
Posted on October 1, 2021 Quarterly estimated payments by individuals of income taxes continued to be strong in September, not a surprise given that the June quarterly payments were also strong. We estimate from the Daily Treasury Statements that individuals’ quarterly income tax payments–due by September 15 as usual, but it always takes the IRS […]
Quarterly Corporate Income Tax Payments Have Continued to Be Strong in September: Fiscal Year Amounts Will Be Well Above Pre-Pandemic Levels
Posted on September 17, 2021 It was no real surprise given the amounts paid in recent months, but the mid-September quarterly payment of income taxes by corporations continued to be very strong. With most all of the September payment now in the books, amounts so far this month have been about 57 percent above payments […]
Weak Employment Report But Strong Tax Withholding in August: The Big Picture Effects of Wage Distribution Shifts on Withholding
Posted on September 6, 2021 Happy Labor Day. It’s a good time to assess the state of the overall labor market, a few days after the employment report for August released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) last Friday. The report showed an unexpectedly small increase in overall employment in August and weak wage […]
Tax Withholding Growth Moves up in August
Posted on August 31, 2021 Income and payroll taxes withheld from paychecks and remitted to the Treasury Department (what we call “tax withholding” or just “withholding”) moved up in August. Compared to amounts from two years ago, we estimate that withholding was 14.7 percent higher in August, a move up from the growth of 13.1 […]
New Data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for 2021Q1: Inconclusive
Posted on August 23, 2021 We look closely at the quarterly releases from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on wages and salaries for the quarter ending about five months prior, 2021Q1 in this case. The data come from the the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW)–more on where the data come from later. […]
Tax Withholding Continues to Show Strength in the First Half of August
Posted on August 16, 2021 In the first half of August, income and payroll taxes withheld from paychecks have continued to grow at about the same strong rates of recent months. Based on data from the Daily Treasury Statements, we estimate that withholding in the first half of August was about 13.5 percent higher than […]
A Strong BLS Employment Report for July: Of the Different Economywide Wage Measures, Withholding Shows the Most Improvement in Recent Months
Posted on August 6, 2021 The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its monthly employment report today, showing strong gains in economywide jobs in July, not surprising to us given the continued strength in tax withholding that we track on a daily basis. Total wage and salary payments as measured by the employment report, which […]
Tax Withholding Remained Strong in July
Posted on August 2, 2021 The amount of federal tax withholding–income and payroll taxes withheld from paychecks and remitted to the Treasury–remained strong in July. Based on daily data released by the Treasury Department, we estimate that tax withholding in July grew by 13.1 percent above amounts from two years ago in July 2019, the […]
Annual Revisions to the National Income and Product Accounts: Wages and Salaries Revised up for 2020
Posted on July 30, 2021 Yesterday the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its end-July annual revisions to the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs). The NIPAs consist largely of the many components of GDP, and every July BEA brings in new source data and revises a number of series going back at least three […]
Federal Corporate Income Tax Payments This Year Are Far Outpacing Amounts in 2019 and 2020
Posted on July 21, 2021 We’ve posted before about the surprisingly high amount of corporate income tax payments so far this year. With two-and-a-half months left in the fiscal year, amounts paid have already well exceeded amounts paid in all of 2019 and 2020 (see chart below). With the mid-July payment now in, payments this […]
Tax Withholding Remains Strong in the First Half of July
Posted on July 18, 2021 If you’re looking for signs of U.S. economic weakness, you won’t find them in the daily tax withholding data. It’s probably not a surprise, but economywide withholding growth in the first half of July continued at its recent strong pace, according to our calculations based on data from the Daily […]
Big Jump in Individuals’ Quarterly Estimated Payments in June
Posted on July 6, 2021 It’s becoming somewhat of a broken record, saying how tax collections from all different sources have been rebounding strongly in recent months, and particularly in sources that relate to higher-income taxpayers. Well, another data point along those same lines comes from individuals’ quarterly estimated payments in June. The payments were […]
Tax Withholding Remains Strong in June
Posted on June 29, 2021 The amount of federal tax withholding–income and payroll taxes withheld from workers’ paychecks and remitted daily to the Treasury Department–remained strong in June, growing by an estimated 13.1 percent compared to the amounts in June from two years ago in 2019 (see chart below). That’s at or above two-year growth […]
Corporate Income Tax Payments Continue to Surge: The June Estimated Payment Was Very Strong
Posted on June 21, 2021 Federal tax collection data for the mid-June corporate estimated payment, the second quarterly payment for the tax year and third in the fiscal year, show that corporate income tax payments are continuing to surge. Corporate tax receipts didn’t slump in 2020, and now they are jumping well above pre-pandemic levels, […]
Blog Post at the Hamilton Project on What We Have Learned from Tax Collections and Refunds During the Recent Filing Season
Posted on June 17, 2021 I had the great experience of co-authoring a blog post at the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project with my former CBO colleague Wendy Edelberg, the Director of the Hamilton Project, and two of her colleagues there, Mitchell Barnes and Sara Estep. We discuss how tax collections and refunds from the recent […]
We Expect that the National Average Wage Index for Social Security Increased in 2020
Posted on June 15, 2021 Summary My best estimate at this point is that the national average wage index (AWI) for Social Security purposes rose by about 1 percent in 2020, which would be a much better performance than some experts’ projections last year for a significant decline, and better than the small 0.5 percent […]
New Economywide QCEW Wage Data Suggest an Upcoming Upward Revision to 2020 NIPA Wage Data
Posted on June 4, 2021 This week the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the full report on how much wages and salaries were in 2020Q4, and hence for all of 2020, as measured by the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). The QCEW are important administrative data provided by nearly all employers in order […]
Federal Revenues are Growing Quite Quickly, Part 2
Posted on June 2, 2021 Two weeks ago we posted that federal revenues were growing quite quickly in recent months considering the effects of the recession, and it is becoming only more clear that such is the case. I am much more bullish on revenues for fiscal year 2021 than both the Administration, which just […]
Another Strong Month for Tax Withholding in May
Posted on June 1, 2021 Income and payroll tax amounts withheld from workers’ paychecks and remitted to the Treasury Department continued to be strong in May, growing by an estimated 14.7 percent over the amount in May from two years ago in 2019 (see chart). We adjust withholding to standardize the amounts for the number […]
NIPA 2020Q4 Wages Were Revised up, Though Not as Significantly as We Expected
Posted on May 28, 2021 Just a quick note as we wait for more complete data next week. But yesterday the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) revised wages and salaries for 2020Q4 up from 1.3 percent growth compared to the same quarter in 2019, to 3.0 percent growth (see chart below). That revision in the […]
Will 2020Q4 NIPA Wages Be Revised Way up, and Raise the Average Wage Index for Social Security, Too?
Posted May 21, 2021 We estimate from partial data for 2020Q4 from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) that economywide wages in the quarter grew very fast, 6.2 percent above the amounts from 2019Q4, largely because of a very large increase (13 percent) in average wages in the economy. The high growth in […]
Federal Tax Receipts Are Growing Quite Quickly Considering The Recession
Posted on May 16, 2021 It’s very difficult to tell how total federal revenues are running compared to recent periods because of tax payment due date changes, legislative changes, and the effects of the recession. By my metric, however, federal tax revenues in recent months have been growing quite quickly, at least in those main […]
Tax Withholding and NIPA Wage Growth Continue to Diverge
Posted on May 5, 2021 Here’s a post with just one paragraph and chart. (You’re welcome.) Since the end of 2020, we’ve measured a marked increase in growth of income and payroll tax withholding, but not nearly so much for economywide wages and salaries as measured in the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs, put […]