Connecticut and New York have followed the lead of the federal government and extended the tax filing deadline until July. But that won’t prevent a huge loss of income tax revenue in both states this year.
Connecticut Comptroller Kevin Lembo says the state received $450 million in income tax revenue by the April 15 tax deadline last year.
“This year that number looks something like $60 million.”
He says that makes it difficult to predict what the state’s fiscal condition would be by July 15.
“The patterns are not there to trend and to track where things are moving at this point.”
State Senate President Martin Looney says Connecticut has a $2.5 billion rainy day fund that it would have to dip into to plug this year’s fiscal shortfall.
“This is truly the kind of rainy day that we needed to have this fund available to meet.”
New York is not so fortunate. Anthony Basile, finance professor at Hofstra University, says the state faced a revenue shortfall even before the coronavirus shutdown.
“I mean we are going to be seeing numbers in unemployment that we’ve not seen before. Hopefully it will be short term so when you annualize, it may not be the worst year we’ve had ever. But certainly in the short term it will be.”
New York could face as much as a $15 billion revenue shortfall. Basile says that would need federal assistance to fill.
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