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The Kansas Capitol is shown in this file photo.

In this week that has felt like it has had two Mondays (Note to calendar makers: Never put July 4 on a Tuesday again,) I’ve got another dose of calendar confusion for you — a year-end report in July.

The state’s fiscal year ended on June 30, which means the state has closed the books on some important and interesting numbers. Perhaps one of the more interesting is the tally of how much money it collected overall in the last 12 months.

The simple answer is: A lot more than it did a year ago.

When you add together all the taxes, fees, interest and other miscellaneous types of revenue received by the state, it collected $1.3 billion more in money than it did one year ago.

That equates to a 17.3% increase in money collected by the state during the last year. Yes, that did outpace inflation, by any measure. The amount of tax revenues the state collected also was quite a bit more than what it budgeted to collect.

Let’s pause here for a message brought to you by politicians. You are going to hear very different things about that $1.3 billion number depending on which set of politicians you listen to. When Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, released the figures on Wednesday, she attributed the increased revenues to her administration’s efforts to attract businesses, expand the workforce and grow the state’s economy.

Later in the afternoon, Senate President Ty Masterson, a Republican, put out a statement saying the numbers show that the governor’s decision to veto a package of tax cuts during the last legislative session was a mistake. He contends the numbers show how much more money state government could return to taxpayers.

I learned long ago that a man with legs as short as mine should not wade into a pit so deep. So, I won’t. There will be plenty of attention on the politics of it all, but probably not much attention on the actual numbers. I think that is an error because a $1.3 billion increase in revenue in a state the size of Kansas is noteworthy, regardless of which side of the political fence you reside on.

Here’s a look at a few details from the year-end report:

• If you are looking for one word to describe how the state ended up with $1.3 billion more in revenue during the last year, I’ve got a suggestion for you: Business. The amount of money the state collected in income taxes from businesses soared. The state collected nearly $700 million more in corporate income taxes in fiscal year 2023 than it did in fiscal year 2022. That was an increase of 86%.

The surge in corporate income taxes caught state officials by surprise. When Kelly submitted her recommended budgeted to lawmakers in January, the state’s consensus revenue estimating group was projecting Kansas would collect just $535 million in corporate income taxes for the year. The group actually thought corporate income taxes would fall by about 10% from totals a year ago.

Instead, corporate tax collections swung massively to the other direction. The state ended up collecting $1.5 billion in corporate income taxes. In other words, the original estimate was off by about $1 billion.

• When you look at income taxes paid by individuals, the story is different. Kansas collected about $330 million less in individual incomes taxes compared to the prior year. Individual income tax collections fell by 6.8%. The $330 million drop in individual income tax collections was the biggest dollar amount drop of any tax category last year. So, if you are scoring along at home, business income taxes increased by the largest dollar amount, while individual income taxes declined by the largest dollar amount.

• The number some folks may be most interested in is $402 million. That’s how much more the state collected in taxes overall, when you total what businesses paid and what individuals paid. That includes not only income taxes but also sales taxes, and a host of special taxes, such as those charged on liquor, oil, gas, cigarettes and a host of other categories. The $402 million increase represented growth of about 4.1%.

But due to the corporate income tax situation described above, it is important to note that the state received about $1 billion — or approximately 10% more in tax revenues — than what Kelly and legislators expected when they began crafting the budget in January.

In other words, there was no budget crunch to be felt in the Kansas Statehouse this year.

• The state got some financial help from an area that creates little pain for taxpayers, either businesses or individuals. Thanks to rising interest rates spurred by the Federal Reserve’s efforts to cool inflation, the state made a lot more money on the money sitting in state bank accounts. The state collected $200.4 million in interest during the last year. In fiscal year 2022, the state collected only $2.8 million. In other words, the state reaped a $197 million windfall just by keeping its money in the bank.

• Public health advocates might be interested in the category of taxes that fell the most — by percentage — in fiscal year 2023. It was the cigarette tax. Tax collections on cigarette sales were down by 10%, or about $11 million. That’s a sign that cigarette sales in the state are declining.

The same can’t be said of alcohol sales. While alcohol sales didn’t surge, the numbers suggest a lot more people were going out to bars and restaurants to drink rather than enjoying their alcoholic beverages at home.

The state charges several types of taxes on liquor, depending on where it is being sold. The state’s liquor enforcement tax comes from sales made from liquor stores. Tax collections on those sales increased just 0.8%. However, the state also charges a tax on liquor sold at bars and restaurants. Tax collections on those sales increased by 8.7%.

• For those of you want even more details about the state’s revenues, here a look at the full spreadsheet for the various revenue categories.