Gov. Jim Justice announced today that West Virginia’s General Revenue collections for November 2022 are $112.7 million above estimates and 10.3% ahead of prior year receipts. Year-to-date record collections are $687.5 million above estimate.  “Our revenue collections continue to exceed our expectations in an incredible way,” Gov. Justice said. “West Virginians spoke loud and clear with their vote in the election – they want tax cuts, but they want them done responsibly.  “Proper minding of our state’s finances, and the unprecedented economic turnaround our state has experienced has led to the incredible opportunity before us to provide meaningful tax cuts for hard working West Virginians who are battling rampant inflation across the board. That’s what I’m working on every day, because it’s what the voters told us to do.

“We’ve been blessed as a state with these incredible revenue surpluses, and the last thing I'm going to be ashamed of is just how good we’re doing. West Virginians should be really, really proud because our state is seeing growth and opportunity the likes of which we haven’t seen in history.”

 

The following is a brief summary of the four major components that accounted for 94% of the year-to-date surplus and more than 95% of the year-to-date 24.3% revenue gain.

 

Coming off a $1.308 billion surplus in Fiscal Year 2022 – the greatest year of revenue collections in state history – and record severance tax collections in the first four months of FY 2023, November notched total year-to-date severance tax collections to an all-time record of $453.6 million, $370.2 million above estimate. Collections for the first five months of this fiscal year exceeded total severance tax collections for all of Fiscal Year 2021 by more than 2.3 times.

 

November Personal Income Tax collections totaled $158.9 million. Collections exceeded the estimate by $109.7 million and prior year receipts by 14.9%. 

 

Corporation Net Income Tax collections totaled $11.8 million in November. Monthly collections were $9.8 million above estimate and 73% ahead of last year. Year-to-date collections of more than $133.9 million were nearly $80.9 million above estimate and 42.9% ahead of prior year-to-date collections.

 

Consumer Sales Tax collections of $153.2 million were $15.1 million above estimate in November and 2.7% ahead of prior November collections. Cumulative collections of more than $671.5 million were $85.8 million above estimate and 6.0% ahead of last year.