Minnesota now expecting a $9.25 billion surplus

An already historic surplus just got bigger. Earlier today the Minnesota Management and Budget (MMB) released their updated economic forecast. And According to the new numbers, Minnesota is now expecting a $9.253 billion surplus in the 2022-2023 biennium. This is $1.5 billion more than what was forecasted in November last year.

As MMB notes, this change is mainly due to higher than expected tax revenues. For example, MMB estimates that individual income tax collections will be nearly half a billion dollars higher compared to the November 2021 estimate.

This is not too surprising considering that revenue updates for the past two months have outpaced the November forecast.

And while uncertainties are still present, it is important to note that of the $9.25 billion, $3.1 billion is money that was leftover from the last session and is already in the bank. In addition to that, the state government has $1.15 billion unspent ARP funds. Moreover, in the last two months, tax revenue collections have outpaced the November forecast by more than $250 million — after shifts in tax payments are taken into account. This means that Minnesota has about $4.5 billion on hand in total excess funds.

Give it back

Any way we slice it, the Minnesota state government is collecting more tax revenue than it needs. Lawmakers need to give this money back to taxpayers.