Overview

Miscellaneous general fund taxes and fees include a number of revenue sources. Many of them are not taxes and are therefore not within the scope of this presentation. Two of the largest sources of miscellaneous revenues are interest earned on cash balances and cash funds lapsed to the general fund. Neither of these will be addressed in this presentation.

This page contains links to information about the five largest tax sources that contribute to this category. They are the estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes, cigarette tax, alcoholic beverages tax, insurance premium tax, and corporate occupation tax. Program descriptions for each of these tax programs are linked below. This narrative contains some history, information about the base and rate of the tax, and the disposition of the funds. The Nebraska estate tax and generation-skipping transfer tax were terminated for decedents dying or transfers occurring on or after Jan. 1, 2007, so this large source of miscellaneous receipts will be disappearing over the next few years.

Also linked is a table with 25 years of receipts from these sources. It should be noted that the table linked below shows only the general fund receipts. In the case of two of these five sources, the insurance premium tax and the cigarette tax, a majority of the proceeds are deposited in funds other than the general fund. This distribution of the proceeds is described more fully in the narrative description.

Key Point from the Analysis

The line chart below shows that miscellaneous general fund tax and fee receipts have grown only at the rate of inflation. This is a lower rate than most of the major sources of revenue which grew at or near the rate of growth in the economy. The property tax is the other major source of revenue that grew at a lower rate over the past 25 years. The sharp upswing that can be seen for fiscal year 2005-06 is due to an unusual and non-recurring estate tax receipt. This one-year increase does not reflect a change in trend.