The recession can now claim another troublesome record: state tax collections shrank at the end of 2009 for a fifth consecutive quarter, the longest period of continuing state revenue declines since at least the Great Depression, according to a new report.
Over all, state tax collections fell to $134.5 billion in the last quarter of 2009, a 4.1 percent drop from the $140.2 billion collected during the same period a year earlier, according to the report, which will be released Tuesday by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.
While the drop in tax collections was less severe than earlier in the year ”” the record for the steepest drop was set last spring when tax collections fell by 16.6 percent compared with the same period in 2008 ”” the continuing declines are putting even more stress on states.