Connecticut income tax receipts fell $450 million in April. That’s according to consensus revenue figures released on Monday by Governor Dannel Malloy’s budget office and the state General Assembly’s office of fiscal analysis.
Governor Malloy’s Budget Director Ben Barnes says it’s a precipitous drop in revenue. He says it will create challenges balancing the state budget. State Senate President Martin Looney, a New Haven Democrat, says only a handful of very wealthy taxpayers are responsible for the shortfall.
“We understand that the hundred largest taxpayers in the state had a huge, huge drop in their income tax liability, in the payments that they filed in April.”
He says the reliance on so few taxpayers is a problem.
“Our fundamental problem in the last two years, it seems, is that we have not been able to predict our income tax receipts.”
Governor Malloy begins budget negotiations with the Republican and Democratic leaders of the State General Assembly on Tuesday. They’ll have to close not only this fiscal year’s budget gap but also a projected deficit of more than $1.5 billion over the next two years.
Looney and Senate Democratic leaders, including Appropriations Committee Chair Cathy Osten of Norwich, want the meetings televised and open to the press.
“We should have it in the public in front of everybody to get our information out to everybody at the same time. So that at the end of the day no one can say I didn’t really say that.”
The GOP senate leadership responded saying this an attempt to shift the conversation away from the severity of the budget situation. They say the Democrats were fine negotiating with the governor behind closed doors when they were in the majority. So why should things be different now that the GOP has an equal number of seats in the State Senate.
