In a recent report the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute (NHFPI) hems and haws its way through potential fiscal decline couched in “mights and maybes” and then (Surprise!) we get “substantially more” in paragraph four.
While the preliminary accrual revenues for SFY 2017 show no growth over SFY 2016’s preliminary accrual numbers, the figures do show substantially more revenue than was planned under the SFYs 2016-2017 State Budget. SFY 2017 revenue for the General and Education Trust Funds was $93.5 million (4.0 percent) over plan, when one-time sources are included. The State appears to have ended SFY 2017 with a significant surplus, despite a slight decline in revenues from SFY 2016’s preliminary accrual figures.
At this point any actual softness, if it even stands up to scrutiny, is a punch in the neck to the Democrats. The chicken-little party promises blood in the streets whenever you loosen gun laws, but that never happens. So it goes with taxes. Democrats insist that the ongoing incremental decrease in New Hampshire business taxes will lead to the end times or something.
In reality, the decline in NH business tax rates has coincided with some excellent revenue numbers in direct contradiction to what the New Hampshire Democrats predicted and were hoping would happen.
