Thursday, January 24, 2008

The Components of Idaho's General Fund Budget

Idaho’s general fund budget consists of five major funding components: (1) individual income tax; (2) corporate income tax; (3) sales tax; (4) product tax; and (5) miscellaneous revenue. As explained in the Division of Financial Management’s General Fund Book for FY 2009, “product tax” includes things like cigarette, beer, and wine taxes, and “miscellaneous revenue” includes things like court fees and fines, alcoholic beverage licenses, estate taxes, and departmental transfers. DFM's General Fund Book for 2009, Revenue Projections.

In FY 1995, when the Republicans took over the Governor’s Office, the General Fund was about $1.2 billion. The five major funding components accounted for the following percentages of that total:

1. Individual Income Tax, 46.30%
2. Sales Tax, 37.39%
3. Corporate Income Tax, 10.22%
4. Miscellaneous Revenue, 4.93%
5. Product Tax, 1.16%

In FY 2007, the pie chart shown above shows where we have gone. Individual income taxes are a slightly bigger portion of the general fund pie, as is the sales tax. The miscellaneous revenue slice is not quite as big. The product tax slice, which was a very small slice in 1995, is even smaller. The most notable drop is the corporate tax slice, which has gone from 10.22% to 6.76% of the pie, a decline of 38.98%.

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