State general-revenue tax collections in October topped projections by $163.5 million, while Floridians continued saving relatively small amounts of money.
The Legislature’s Office of Economic & Demographic Research released a report Friday that said net general revenue in October totaled $3.436 billion, exceeding a projection issued in August by 5 percent.
The report said the gain “essentially” could be explained by increases in sales taxes and earnings on investments. Sales taxes make up the largest part of general revenue and totaled about $2.857 billion in October.
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But the report said persistent inflation will eventually suppress collections as some consumers limit spending to non-taxable necessities like food and health care.
Also, as they have repeatedly over the past two years, economists used the report to caution about lagging consumer savings.
During the 2018-2019 fiscal year, before the COVID-19 pandemic caused upheaval in the economy, 7.9 percent of personal income went into savings.
The new report said Floridians had a “subpar” savings rate of 3.8 percent, a slight improvement from 3.7 percent in September. General revenue is closely watched because it plays a key role in funding education, health-care and prison programs. September collections came in 5.7 percent over projections.
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