The Economic Forum met this week (Tuesday, May 4) and provided their forecast for the biennium so the legislature could start closing their budgets and the legislative session. The forecast shows a significant recovery, allowing legislators to “add back” funds to programs that were previously cut to address the revenue shortfall caused by the Governor’s economic shutdown done in response to the pandemic.
Before providing these numbers, consider that there will be a special session of the legislature after they close out the regular session to determine how to spend the billions of dollars Nevada is receiving in federal funds under the American Recovery Act.
In sum, the Economic Forum forecast over a half-billion dollars in additional tax revenues available above and beyond the figures provided during their last meeting in December of 2020. The $586 million of additional funds provides a forecast for the next biennium of a total of $9.1 billion (previous forecast was $8.5 billion). Add in the revenue growth above previous projections for the last year of this biennium to the projected additional revenue for the next biennium (three year period), there is an addition $910 million of revenue.
The breakdown from some of our larger revenue sources:
Sales & Use Taxes $2.7 billion (increase of 5% from previous forecast)
Gaming Tax $1.5 billion (increase of $100 million from previous)
MBT $1.6 billion (increase of about $100 million from previous)
Insurance Prem. Tax $1 billion (pretty steady)
Real Property Transfer $250 million (assumes a housing slowdown next year)
Commerce Tax $470 million (up about 10% from previous forecast)
Live Entertainment $180 million (slightly down)
Mining Net Proceeds $150 million (pre-paying a lot of their 2022 during 2021)
If you want to see the detailed report by the Economic Forum, go here:
https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Division/Fiscal/Economic%20Forum/MAY%202021%20FORECAST.pdf
