As I mentioned in a previous post, corporate tax receipts have recently appeared relatively weak: in each of the past five months, payments of corporate receipts have experienced notable year-over-year declines. December may turn out to reverse that trend, however, and December is a relatively important month for corporate receipts.
For most corporations, the fourth quarterly payment of estimated taxes was due on December 17. (Most corporations pay their estimated taxes in April, June, September, and December.) Over the last three business days, including the day that corporate estimated tax payments were due, corporate income tax payments to the federal government amounted to $82.3 billion, compared to $79.4 billion on comparable days last year. (See here for the underlying data.) So far this month, gross corporate tax receipts are running slightly ahead of last year. Corporate refunds this month have also been running ahead of those seen last December, but those are much smaller than receipts.