Federal tax receipts suggest GDI numbers, not GDP numbers, are accurate. They also hint at recession.
Tax receipts and total receipts are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis which also produces the government GDP estimates.
Data is through 2023 Q1 because tax data, like Gross Domestic Income (GDI) is not available in the first estimate of GDP for the quarter.
Tax Receipts and Total Receipts Since 2018
Total receipts have fallen three consecutive quarters. Tax receipts have fallen two straight quarters.
Total Receipts and Tax Receipts Percent Change From Previous Quarter
When tax receipts and total receipts both plunge, the economy is typically in recession. There were false signals in 1985 and 2003. There have also been recessions unconfirmed by plunging receipts so this is admittedly not the greatest of signals. But the tax data and the GDI data align.
Real GDP Beats Expectations, Rises 2.4 Percent in First Estimate for 2023 Q2
On July 27, I noted Real GDP Beats Expectations, Rises 2.4 Percent in First Estimate for 2023 Q2
Nearly everyone cheered the strong report, except it was not entirely strong. GDI did not confirm GDP. GDI was negative for two consecutive quarters.
Nonfarm Payrolls and Employment Levels
Payrolls vs Employment Since May 2022
- Nonfarm Payrolls: +4,162,000
- Employment Level: +2,695,000
- Full Time Employment: +2,116,000
Of the 894,000 rise in employment in January, 810,000 was due to annual benchmark revisions. And the BLS does not say what months were revised, just poof, here you go. Again, we cannot, with strong confidence, suggest these reports portray an accurate picture of either jobs or employment.
Every month, economists and the mainstream media tout strong jobs reports. But the household survey (employment levels) have not matched nonfarm payrolls (the establishment survey).
They measure two things. The establishment survey is a count of jobs, whereas in the household survey you are either employed or not regardless of how many jobs you have.
The discrepancy between jobs and employment also lends credence to GDI not GDP. So does the index of total hours worked.
The BLS Jobs Report Falls Way Short of Stellar ADP Expectation
I discuss these discrepancies every month when the job surveys are published. For the latest report, please see The BLS Jobs Report Falls Way Short of Stellar ADP Expectation
The payroll tax data, income data, and the household survey are all in sync. GDP is the odd man out.
Well, any 3 year old glancing at the chart can tell that the stratospheric rise in tax receipts in the past few years has no historical equivalence and looks wholly unsustainable. It’s basically just reverting back to the mean now.
Watch the Unemployment numbers spike within the next few weeks..
As 30,000+ workers just lost their job (Yellow trucking)!!!!
And it looks like it is going to effect all their subsidaries!!!!
Which is still resulting in “CRICKETS”!!!!
=Tax receipts from the BEA, chart by Mish
very good post. ONLY ONE PROBLEM!
it used to be 2 sets of data: daily treasury and monthly treasury statements.
basically monthly treasury reporsts are totally fake cause they use on/off reporting.
I won’t go too far on that. feel free to find out .
——
but daily treasury statements are real and those are updated daily.
problem is
AFTER DEBALCE W/ debt ceiliing march-feb 2023 ,
daily statements stopped publishing any figures about taxes paid by .
there are none!!!!
CHECK IT OUT FOR YOURSELF.
fsapps.fiscal.treasury.gov/dts/issues
fsapps.fiscal.treasury.gov/dts/files/23080100.txt – LATEST!
PAGE 8, TABLE IV Federal Tax Deposits
there are no any figures. and just compare to any date 1 year ago.
alx
ps
DONT PAY ANY ATTENTON TO BEA. its figures are not real. just projections
subject to changes.
What is the difference between total receipts and tax receipts? Donations?
The hidden receipts.
Look in the second set of books.
Don’t forget they’ve also classified a lot of the funding. You can’t trust any of the numbers, they’re only good for indicators; and not always of the economic sectors.
I really miss the like buttons.
like
The email notifications still have a “like” link.
If all those self-dosing rat experiments have any value at all, just clicking the link should satiate you for a while.
We are all rats at heart. To get to the end of the maze you got to hustle.
I’m a juvenile male rat at heart.
I’m just going to stake out a nice spot on the maze and sleep with all the female rats that pass by.
This is an endless circular maze which never ceases to a-maze me. .
LIke, too.
Excellent informative charts and commentary! Thank you, Mish.
SLEEPY JOE BIDENOMICS resembles RAYGUNOMICS
Alzheimernomics
Hahahaha yes
As Mish has said several times, we will have a shallow recession with employment and these stats and others are confirming this outcome. Remains to be seen if the recession will be long or not. I agree with Mish that it will be a long one.
=shallow recession with employment
sure!
there are about 260 mil adults in USA. about 100 mln dont work. (it is about 40pct)
and dont pay any federal income taxes.
“there are about 260 mil adults in USA. about 100 mln dont work. (it is about 40pct)
and dont pay any federal income taxes.”
False equivalence. I don’t work, but I do pay federal income taxes.
some kind of BS.
what do you mean by ‘work’? working means any your acitvity that brings money subject for IRS! that is it.
if you meant you have some kind of passive income (bonds, stocks, etc)
AND YOU dont need to go work each and every day. kudos to you!
how many such ones out of 100 mil? 1 pct? 2 pct?
see what i mean?
——–
those 100 mil dont work, and dont have income reported.
and-or taking money from goverment.
alx
Now you just need to figure out how many don’t pay all the other taxes imposed. To include inflation. There seems to be a strong sense of stupid in this thread about what constitutes a tax. Only income tax, cuz I’m too ignorant to understand that’s just one slice of a pie that smells like it was baked in a sewer. I’ve mentioned this many times, but stupid can’t be fixed.
Thank you as always, you are the only voice out there, and I appreciate it! God bless and stay safe
Do the tax receipts account for the delay in payments due given to disaster areas? I think the CA is one of the delayed payment areas. Anyone that can delay payments: Corporations, Partnerships or individuals that pay quarterly estimates would certainly delay paying. You can easily earn a nice return risk free on the cash.
Also, those with income increases only need to pay 110% of last year’s tax due. They certainly wont pay ahead of the requirement. I think 2023 will see some big capital gains.
I was just about to mention that.
There are many highly populated, extremely wealthy counties in CA that have been granted automatic six-month filing extensions for the 2022 tax year. Those receipts will not be booked by the Treasury until midway through the 4th quarter.
As one of my favorite economic analysts Mohamed A. El-Erian has stated:
“Despite 10 consecutive interest rate increases, which constitute the most concentrated Federal Reserve rate cycle in decades, the labor market has not experienced any significant weakening. Monthly job creation, unemployment rates, and wage growth have remained impressively robust.
Contrary to the repeated forecasts from many economists and Wall Street analysts, the US economy has not fallen into a recession.
While the March bank disruptions produced the two largest failures in US history, the impact has not spread throughout the financial system, whether to other regional banks or highly leveraged non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs).
Traders and investors have not been significantly caught off guard by the wild volatility in the government bond market.”
I only trust raw numbers, like tax receipts. Not the adjusted numbers that are clearly adjusted to make things look better than reality.
I honestly don’t understand why unadjusted numbers aren’t the reported numbers. Everyone understands a lot of people are hired in November for Christmas and then let go in January. Just say we lost 1.5m jobs in January, but last year we lost 1.7m, so the numbers are better than expected. It would be like an NFL team goes 8-9 but since they were only expected to win 5 games, we adjusted their record to 12-5. If the BLS were doing the adjustment and the team was favored by democrats, they would have adjusted them to 17-0. Greatest team ever.
=I only trust raw numbers, like tax receipts.
exactly!
Employment stats must be loaded with fraud. The problem with fake job advertisements has existed for years and until someone nails down the problem, I will not believe in the numbers. Note: I have direct experience with this.
Anecdotes do not statistics make.
Statistics can be made meaningless, as we saw with Covid.
I see you’ve made a petition to the King of Statistics.
No need to petition. A study of Covid patients who died after ventilation, determined that upward of 58% died from VAP- Ventilator Associated Pneumonia. If confirmed, that changes Covid death statistics.
And convid death rates couldn’t be manipulated beyond 1%. It was so blatantly, in your face obvious that it cracks me up that 80% of Americans wigged out enough to take a vaxx that the creator of the technology begged everyone not to take. You just can’t make this up! Don’t worry, most of those who didn’t take it did so for political reasons. Usually trumptards. Which is really hilarious as he claims all the glory for it despite being absolutely clueless about all aspects of it. The hits just keep coming with the slaves .
Well into the vaccination timeline, the population segment with the lowest vaccination rate was the black community.
Blacks may not have taken the vaxx, but in my area they are the most likely to be wearing a mask while no one’s even around them! And people wonder why I can’t take this clown world seriously. Those dust filters get pretty nasty! Not to mention they are a joke. If your mask will stop a virus, it’ll stop oxygen as well! An entire world of stupid human tricks.
There are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics.
There are simpler explanations than fraud. It’s enough to explain the lower reliability of the stats by simply noting that a) response rates in the surveys are at historic lows. Lower sample sizes mean bigger errors. Also, b) an ever growing number of individuals fall outside the scope of the payroll surveys – gig workers, entrepreneurs, etc.
I’m not sure why one would immediately jump to the idea of fraud, as if the idea of Occam’s Razor isn’t a thing.
Oh, I don’t know, probably because I was told to my face that I no chance for a position only open to internal cronies – by the corporate interviewer – regardless of knowledge of the job.
I didn’t assert a fact, merely a reasonable suspicion – echoed by others – that corporations commonly issue fake job listings. Until someone does a hard study proving what the truth is, there’s no reason to put much faith in listed jobs.
“The problem with fake job advertisements has existed for years ”
” I no chance for a position only open to internal cronies – by the corporate interviewer”
That’s not a fake job advertisement — the job was real and filled. The process to fill it was a show and you were a pawn in that. Falls under the “life ain’t fair” listing, not fraud.
Ads don’t factor into these numbers.