Tax Collections Continue Upward Climb
       With one month left in the fiscal year, income tax receipts are up 10 percent, withholding tax collections are up 4.3 percent, sales and use tax receipts are up 4.1 percent and net corporate and business tax collections are up 2.8 percent from this point last year.
       Beacon Hill lawmakers are working behind the scenes on a supplemental budget to close out this fiscal year with the knowledge that tax collections are far exceeding the benchmarks they used to draw up their budget. The budget benchmarks have been raised several times and with May revenues coming in at $122 million, or 10 percent more than last May, tax collections for the first 11 months of the fiscal year are still running $377 million above benchmarks.
       The developments are fueling three schools of thought: enact tax cuts, restore spending accounts, and eliminate the use of one-time revenues that are leaving the state with a structurally unbalanced budget.