Fourth quarter revenue collections exceed forecasts by over $8M

The Department of Finance is in the process of submitting its fourth quarter performance report for fiscal year 2024 and based on the report, revenue collections exceed expectations by over $8 million.

During a press conference last Thursday, Finance Secretary Tracy Norita shared that she is in the process of submitting a fourth quarter performance report to the CNMI Legislature.

The highlight of the report, she shared, is that revenue collections for the fourth quarter of FY24 has exceeded forecasts by $8.3 million.

“We’ve seen some positive improvements and indicators. For the fourth quarter alone, we exceeded forecasts by 21% or $8.3 million compared to historical collection trends,” she said.

Norita detailed that in income taxes alone, revenue collections were up over $6 million.

“In the report, the subcategory of income taxes, which includes BGRT, personal income tax, corporate income tax, we saw an increase of 26% or $6.1 million,” she said.

For the overall taxes and fees category, Norita said the CNMI exceeded forecasts by 7% or $2.5 million.

“I believe this is a direct result of the aggressive collection efforts of the tax collection taskforce in addition to other economic activities that are the sources of these increases,” she said.

Norita adds that the report will also include a cumulative fiscal performance for FY24.

“Because of these joint effort by this administration, we have exceeded income tax forecasts by 15% or $14.6 million,” she said.

Norita expresses that the increase in collections is a direct result of efforts made by the recently established Task Collections Taskforce.

“Also because of the efforts of the Tax Collections Taskforce, we’ve increased our collection on penalties and interest by 195%. It’s now evident that this is a necessary effort that should continue,” she said.

Another highlight of the report, Norita shared, was the increase in collection of Hotel Occupancy Tax.

“One other factor that we’ve been monitoring closely is the collection of Hotel Occupancy Tax which exceeded forecasts by 12%. This is a direct result, again, of increase enforcement and of tourist arrivals resulting in the Marianas Visitors Authority receiving an additional $569,000 to boost tourism and their operations,” she said.

“Again, we’re not out of the woods yet, we understand that we are still seeing challenges in our excise tax collections mostly due to national and global events that are driving up the costs of goods and fuel. However, we do see specific increases on construction going to Tinian. So those are other positive indicators,” Norita added.