Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Average daily Federal tax receipts rising for two consecutive months now!

Average daily tax receipts are now up two months in a row. These tax receipts are comprised mostly of employee withholding tax, otherwise known as payroll taxes. This is a good sign and might indicate a better than expected reading on the jobs number next week.

14 comments:

Staff Writer said...

You say, "Average daily Federal tax receipts rising for two consecutive months now!"

What two months, Mike? The Treasury Dept numbers show receipts for Jun09 and Jul09 as 215.4 and 151.5, respectively. That calculates to an average daily receipt as follows: $9.8B for June and $6.6B for July.

Also you don't know what the average daily receipt for August is going to be. Whenever you use Monday or Tuesday data to project, you end up with a biased high average because Monday includes Saturday and Sunday receipts, as well.

You're conclusion regarding the increase is incorrect and the graph is misleading.

mike norman said...

There is a daily Treasury statement, which is updated each day at around 4:30pm ET. The most recent statement shows all outlays and receipts as of August 24. I do a daily calculation of the average of receipts received. Sorry, but the graph is not misleading. You are just not aware of the most recent data.

mike norman said...

BTW, I adjusted June for seasonal factors because it is a corporate tax month.

mike norman said...

Lynette, are you a Schiff fan by any chance?

The Joker said...

Mike, what is the website address for the daily tresury statement?

Staff Writer said...

Joker, the daily numbers are posted at the Current Daily Treasury Statement.

I can see where Mike is getting his August estimate. Clicking on the pdf for Aug 24, you can see where Mike is getting the $6.9 billion avg daily receipt estimate for August, but the numbers for June and July aren't calculated the same way.

Mike says he's adjusted the June number to exclude corporate taxes, but when I subtract the corporate taxes from the month of June09 and recalculate, it still comes out much higher than the number Mike shows in his bar chart. The receipts minus the corporate taxes comes out to $8.7 billion per day, that number is still high off the chart in this post. So the August estimate is much lower than June avg daily receipt, not higher, as Mike claims.

And July number on the chart is wrong in Mike's post, too. The July number is too high. He's apparently adjusted the July avg daily receipt upward. Mike hasn't given any reason for adjusting the July number upward. He's apparently using three different methods of calculation for each month on the bar chart.

I'd like to see some credible assumptions from Mike so that his results can be reproduced in order to substantiate his claim that tax receipts are rising over the months of June, July, and August.

mike norman said...

Here are the daily tax deposits for Aug 3- Aug 24, 16 business days

19,622
2,590
8,102
2,288
5,505
9,703
2,664
5,885
1,817
7,910
18,704
1,751
6,986
1,614
5,626
9,686

The average is $69,03

Here are the daily tax deposits for Jul 1- Jul 22, 16 business days (comparable period)

16,021
5,279
5,519
8,673
1,414
5,859
1,786
6,081
9,898
5,384
11,993
9,037
4,561
8,270
1,556
7,263

The average is $6,787

Here are the tax deposits for June 1-June 22, June 15 was excluded (*the 46,231 figure) due to the fact that it was a corporate tax due date.

19,721
4,664
7,559
1,961
4,797
8,966
1,588
6,270
2,813
11,324
46,231*
10,238
6,096
2,003
6,514
8,536

Average is $5,952

Now, what's your problem, lady? And you didn't answer my question: Are you a Schiff follower?

Is this you?

mike norman said...

oops, in that August average it's $6,903, not, $69,03. Put the comma in the wrong place. Sorry.

Matt Franko said...

Mike,
She seems to be looking at the Monthly Treasury Statement for monthly information. I gave up on that one some time ago as I think the Daily is more accurate.

A while back I called the Treasury Dept. POC for the DTS report and he informed me that the DTS was "cash basis" accounting, and the MTS was sort of "accrual" accounting or at best modified cash basis. So the Treasury makes some adjustments in the MTS that could skew the data from my point of view. ( I prefer cash basis)

I think your following the DTS is more timely and accurate for short term modeling.

kbob said...

Mike, why do you care if Lynette is a schiff follower? All she did was make a credible argument, and your response is to ask her if she's a schiff follower and if she is that freak woman in the pic.

Feeling vulnerable?

Staff Writer said...

I don't know who the woman in the pic is, but even she looks better than Mike's arithmetic.

Mike's claim that daily Federal tax receipts are rising for two consecutive months is simply untrue.

Whether you use the Daily Treasury Statements (DTS) or the Monthly Treasury Statements (MTS), the numbers that Mike is representing on his bar graph don't add up. Even the string of daily data he lists for June in the comment above doesn't calculate to the average he claims it does.

It's very easy to look at the DTS figures for June, July and August at the Treasury website and check it for yourself. Look on Table IV of the documents I link to here.

Mike has chosen to compare only the first 16 business days of each month and to subtract the corporate taxes. Frankly, I don't know why he doesn't use the daily averages for the full months of June and July, but these are his assumptions. However, even using his method, the numbers clearly do not show the two month rise he's claiming in his blog.

The average daily receipts for June, July, and Aug for the first 16 days of each month and subtracting the corporate taxes.

June, for example:

149.3B total as of June 22
- 39.4 corporate tax
= 109.9B

109.9 / 16 business days
= $6.9B the average daily receipt June 1 through June 22

Using Mike's assumptions you get:

June $6.9B
July $6.1B
Aug $6.7B

Clearly, that does not represent a rise in Federal tax receipts in any two of the listed consecutive months. Mike's claim that there was a rise and his bar chart in his post are false.

Whether Mike wants to admit it to his readers is up to him, but his post was incorrect and misleading.

mike norman said...

I use the daily data because I can get the most up to date reading. And you're nuts if you're telling me those data don't average to what I posted. And for your info, the data is updated every night at 4:30pm ET. When I posted that it was the 16th reporting day of the month and I compared that to the exact same reporting period of the prior two months. It may well turn our that August's total tally falls below July's, however, as of August 26, total Federal tax deposits were $118.5 billion. And on July 24 (same, 18-day period), total take was $116.3 billion. Duh...we're running above. Do me a favor, get off my blog!!

mike norman said...

Lynette:

Data for July 24, month-to-date (18 days): here.
Please see table IV, line 9, "Total Taxes." ($116,298 millions)

Data for August 26, month-to-date (18 days) here.
Please see table IV, line 9, "Total Taxes." ($118,502 millions)

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