U.S. states saw their tax revenue drop by about $31 billion, or 6 percent, from March through August, compared to the same period a year earlier, as the pandemic triggered economic shutdowns across the country, according to data from 44 states compiled by the Urban Institute.
The scale of the drop appears smaller than expected, relative to the depth of the economic contraction, and comes after several states have reported that their revenue didn’t decline as much as anticipated despite business shutdowns and increased unemployment. In August, when much of the country was reopening, state revenue climbed about 1.1 percent from a year earlier, the Urban Institute found.
Rathi Murthy is the Chief Technology Officer at Varo Bank, the first nationally chartered all-digital consumer bank in the United States. In this role, she leads the company's end-to-end technology strategy, overseeing the design and development of secure, scalable, and AI-powered digital banking platforms. Her leadership is instrumental in advancing Varo's mission to build inclusive, accessible, and real-time financial solutions for millions of consumers.
A seasoned technology executive, Rathi brings over 25 years of experience leading innovation and digital transformation at some of the world's most recognized technology and financial services companies. Prior to joining Varo, she served as Chief Technology Officer and President of Expedia Product & Technology at Expedia Group, where she modernized the company's global travel infrastructure, integrating AI-driven personalization, modular architecture, and advanced cloud capabilities across its family of brands.
Earlier, she held executive leadership roles at Verizon Media and Gap Inc., where she led enterprise cloud migrations, e-commerce platform evolution, and large-scale product delivery initiatives across global markets.
Rathi also served as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Enterprise Growth at American Express, where she was responsible for the technology strategy and operations of the Serve platform and a suite of prepaid products including Bluebird.
Rathi's early career includes engineering leadership roles at eBay, Yahoo!, Sun Microsystems, and WebMD, where she consistently delivered improvements in platform stability, operational agility, and customer experience.
In addition to her executive work, Murthy is a board member at PagerDuty, Inc., a leader in digital operations management, and serves as an External Expert Advisor to the University of San Francisco's Board of Trustees Committee on Information Technology Strategy. She is also a regular speaker at industry events and leadership forums, offering thought leadership on topics such as fintech innovation, integrating AI, platform transformation, and executive technology leadership.
Guy Baker, CFP, Ph.D., is the founder of Wealth Teams Alliance in Irvine, California.
He is a member of the Forbes 250 Top Financial Security Professionals list and is author of "Maximize the RedZone," a guide for business owners, as well as "The Great Wealth Erosion," "Manage Markets, Not Stocks" and "Investment Alchemy." He received the 2019 John Newton Russell Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in insurance.
The tax figures come as Republicans in Washington balk at extending aid to states and cities to help cover budget deficits that are expected to continue as the coronavirus weighs on the economy. Experts say that states’ financial outlooks could worsen as the effects of the stimulus bill fade and high unemployment reduces tax bills next year.
The August increase should be viewed with caution since income-tax deadlines were pushed back to July, which could have resulted in some revenue being processed later, according to Lucy Dadayan, senior research associate with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Personal income-tax collections, which rose 3.8 percent in August, were in some cases supported by backlogged unemployment insurance benefits subject to withholding tax, Dadayan said.
Between March and August, tax revenues fell 6.4 percent year over year, with 36 states reporting declines over that period, the report said. Between March and August, eight states, including Washington and Georgia, reported growth in tax revenue.
“Due to the shifting in timing of tax receipts this past year, it is crucial to view August year-over-year revenue gains and fiscal year to date data with caution,” Dadayan said in the report.