Another sign of a slowly improving energy sector in Oklahoma as November tax collections were up compared to a year ago. State Treasurer Ken Miller says it’s the second month of improvements as he released the monthly Gross Receipts to the Treasury Report.
The November gross production taxes generated $34.1 million which was an increase of $3.9 million or 12.9 percent from November a year ago. Before October, those collections had been lower than the previous year for every month since December 2014. Compared to October, the November collections are still down by $1 million or 2.9 percent over the month.
“It would appear our anchor industry is making slow but steady improvement, while the spillover effect of the long energy price downturn on income and consumer spending is ongoing,” said Miller. “My hope is that we will begin to see overall improvement with renewed oil field activity following OPEC’s plans to cut production levels and bring supply more in line with demand.”
He said that the energy improvement was welcome news but added that collections from income tax and sales tax fell below the prior year collections.
Total gross receipts for November remain 4.3 percent below last year’s collections and extend the state’s revenue contraction to 21 months.
