Alabama tax revenues grew at a record pace in 2021, thanks in large part to economic stimulus money from the federal government, according to data from the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama.
Despite a global pandemic and massive layoffs and furloughs around the country and the state to start the 2021 fiscal year, Alabama’s general fund and education trust fund budgets grew by 11 percent for the period ending Sept. 30. That far outpaced the standard 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent those budgets typically grow each year.
In real dollars, the ETF took in around $8.6 billion — an increase of $900 million from 2020. That was enough money to repay the more than $300 million borrowed in 2020 from the Rainy Day Fund.
The general fund, in the meantime, took in over $2.6 billion, an increase of $262 million.
The primary source of the revenue increases for the ETF was an uptick in income taxes made possible by the federal government’s stimulus program. For the general fund, the jump was aided most by a big increase in insurance company taxes. A 2019 law change moved those funds — a $30 million bump for the general fund — out of the ETF.
