After two months of a slight surge in gross receipts to the State treasury, they fell below collections made in March of 2016, according to State Treasurer Ken Miller.
But he said there was a bright spot and that was the collections from crude oil and natural gas gross production taxes. They were more than double the collections from a year ago and were the highest March total in two years. The March gross production receipts were $47.9 million, an increase of $24.2 million or 102.2 percent.
The oil and gas gross production tax collections in the past 12 months brought in $391.5 million, a drop of $11.8 million or 2.9 percent from the prior period.
“March gross receipts notwithstanding, leading indicators continue to show Oklahoma’s economy is slowly on the mend,” Miller said. “The average decline in gross receipts has slowed and the unemployment rate is shrinking as rig counts rise along with business conditions and consumer confidence.”
The total March collections were $915 million, a drop of $25.5 million or 2.7 percent compared to the March 2016 collections. Collections from corporate income and sales taxes were also down from a year ago.
For the past 12 months, gross receipts totaled $10.8 billion or $632.8 million less than the previous 12-month period.
Individual income tax collections for March were $306.5 million or a 6 percent increase from a year earlier. Corporate collections totaled $28.1 million, a drop of $50.4 million or 64.2 percent.
Motor vehicle taxes produced $68.3 million, up by $3.2 million, or 4.9 percent, from the prior year.
Listen to part of Miller’s news conference.