Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar released on September 1, 2023, the totals for fiscal 2023 state revenues, in addition to announcing monthly state revenues for August. According to Hegar, the state of Texas received 8.3% more in General Revenue-related revenue for fiscal 2023 totaling $82.84 billion. Listed below are all the taxes and revenues, which were all up, collected for the 2023 fiscal year.
- All Funds revenue was $187.79 billion, up 2.4 percent from fiscal 2022.
- All Funds tax collections were $82.15 billion, up 6.4 percent from fiscal 2022.
- Sales tax revenue was $46.58 billion, up 8.4 percent from fiscal 2022.
- Motor vehicle sales and rental tax revenue was $6.82 billion, up 5.8 percent from fiscal 2022.
- Franchise tax revenue was $6.82 billion, up 20.2 percent from fiscal 2022.
Although Texas had a great year fiscally, one industry has a lower tax outcome. That is the oil and natural gas production tax revenue. Oil production tax revenue was $5.93 billion for fiscal 2023 which is down 6.8% from fiscal 2022. Natural gas production tax revenue was $3.35 billion which is down a whopping 25% from fiscal 2022.
“Fiscal 2023 tax revenues were ahead of our projections in the Biennial Revenue Estimate released in January,” Hegar said. “Franchise and insurance taxes were particularly strong in fiscal 2023. These taxes are based on the companies’ activity in 2022, and year-over-year increases of 20 and 30 percent, respectively, are the results of receipts elevated due to the high price of inflation last year. In addition, interest and investment income was up more than 72 percent in comparison with fiscal 2022, thanks to elevated interest rates and large cash balances in the state treasury.”
The Economic Stabilization Fund and State Highway Fund both receive funding from oil and natural gas severance taxes. In November, the Comptroller’s office will deposit $3.06 billion in each of those funds in fiscal 2024, down from the $3.64 billion deposited in each fund in fiscal 2023.
Moving on to August 2023 sales tax revenue, totaled $3.98 billion in August, 5.7 percent more than in August 2022. The City of Brownfield was up 24.50% bringing in $132,728.59 from $106,603.52 in Aug. 2022. Also, Brownfield is up for the year-to-date revenue bringing in $1,234,626.75, an 8.45% increase from $1,138,402.23. Terry County was up in sales tax revenue bringing in $63,309.65 and is a 12.37% increase from $56,335.93 in Aug. 2022. Like Brownfield, Terry County’s year-to-date sales tax revenue was up as well, bringing in a total of $603,445.35, or a 13.09% increase compared to last year’s year-to-date $533,567.01.
Moving to the smaller towns in Terry County, the City of Meadow brought in $1,894.63 in August 2023, a –26.08 % decrease from $2,563.26 in August 2022. However, Meadow’s year-to-date has brought in $90,647.30 which is a 481.78% increase from the 2022 year-to-date revenue of $15,580.87. The City of Wellman had a similar outcome as Meadow. Its August 2023 sales tax revenue had a -21.87 % decrease from $750.44 to $586.31. For Wellman’s year-to-date tax revenue, it has picked up 26.12% to $5,860.51 from $4,646.47.
The majority of August sales tax revenue is based on sales made in July and remitted to the agency in August.
“August receipts from the oil and gas mining sector finished the fiscal year as they did every month this year by leading gains in collections among all major sectors,” Hegar said. “Growth in receipts from the other sectors driven primarily by business spending were more muted, as has been the case in recent months. Remittances from the construction and manufacturing sectors were up slightly compared with last August, while receipts from the wholesale trade sector were negative for the fourth time in five months.
Also according to the Comptroller’s office, remittances from the retail trade sector were up overall from a year ago, but results within the sector were mixed. Online shopping receipts were up by double digits compared with last August, but receipts from building materials stores, electronics and appliance stores, and furniture and home goods stores continued to show weakness as the boom seen during the pandemic in these sectors continued to fade.
Restaurant receipts were slightly above the inflation rate for food away from home in July 2023. Total sales tax revenue for the three months ending in August 2023 was up 5 percent compared with the same period a year ago. Sales tax is the largest source of state funding for the state budget, accounting for 57 percent of all tax collections.
Texas collected the following revenue from other major taxes in August:
- motor vehicle sales and rental taxes — $659 million, up 1 percent from August 2022;
- motor fuel taxes — $329 million, up 3 percent from August 2022;
- oil production tax — $501 million, down 18 percent from August 2022;
- natural gas production tax — $137 million, down 74 percent from August 2022;
- hotel occupancy tax — $70 million, up 1 percent from August 2022; and
- alcoholic beverage taxes — $148 million, up 2 percent from August 2022.
