Mississippi’s August revenue collections come in $51 million above estimate

• Driving the increase were sales tax collections, individual income tax collections, and corporate income tax collections, as all came in above the same month in the prior fiscal year.

Mississippi revenues outpaced legislative estimates again in August, pushing the first two months of the current fiscal year to $71.7 million above estimates.

August collections were $51,141,604, or 9.71% above the revenue estimate for the month.

Fiscal year-to-date revenue collections through August were $71,726,867, or 6.52% above the revenue estimate. The July and August collections combined came in above the year-to-date revenue
collections for the prior year by $59,707,651, or 5.36%.

Lawmakers set the total revenue estimate for Fiscal Year 2027 at $7,532,400,000.

August General Fund collections were $53,023,485, or 10.10% above the same month in the prior fiscal year.

Driving the increase were sales tax collections, individual income tax collections, and corporate income tax collections, as all came in above the same month in the prior fiscal year.

Sales tax collections for the month of August were above the prior year by $12.3 million while individual income tax collections and corporate income tax collections totaled $20.9 million and $5.6 million, respectively, above the prior year.

The only line item that came in below the year-to-date collections compared to the prior year was the Medical Cannabis Excise Tax.

The report from the Joint Legislative Budget Committee also showed that the unemployment rate in Mississippi declined by 0.2% in July, down to 3.6%. The national average unemployment is 4.1%.

Non-farm employment also rose to its highest level in July, with nearly 1.2 million Mississippians employed. That number was a 0.3% uptick from the prior report.