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The panel of experts tasked with projecting Hawaiʻi state tax collections each year is basically stumped by recent events in Washington, D.C.

The state Council on Revenues made only modest adjustments Wednesday to its previous projections of state general fund tax collections for the next six years, with members puzzling at length over what impact tariffs, turmoil in the stock market or federal tax policy might have on Hawaiʻi’s economy.

“Just thinking about whether we’re going to be impacted by all the chaos that’s going on now, we don’t have any hard data yet on those impacts,” said University of Hawaiʻi economist Carl Bonham. “Everything is soft data.”

Bonham is executive director of the University of Hawaiʻi Research Organization, which recently predicted layoffs imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration would wipe out the jobs of more than 2,000 federal workers in Hawaiʻi.

The report concluded the federal upheaval including the layoffs “places the Hawaiʻi economy at risk of recession over the next few years.”

“Then literally a week later a federal judge put a halt to many of those layoffs,” Bonham told his colleagues on the council Wednesday. “Now, some of them, I think, are still happening, but we don’t have hard data.”

Bonham wondered if tariffs on imported steel and lumber might put a damper on local construction — which has been a bright spot in the Hawaiʻi economy — but “no one knows what the heck is going to happen with the tariffs. They change every hour of every day.”

He predicted the tariffs will be a drag on the U.S. economy “if they stay in place, but no one knows.” Tariffs could also hurt the stock market, he said, if they turn out to be larger than expected or remain in place for an extended period.

Council Vice Chair Kristi Maynard pondered whether the recent drop in the stock market could make U.S. consumers feel less affluent, which might affect leisure travel. Yet there are no clear signs yet of an economic slowdown.

In short, council Chair Kurt Kawafuchi said the fiscal year that begins July 1 “sounds like a very uncertain year.”

The council meets several times a year to discuss the outlook for the state economy and project tax collections for the years ahead. Those projections are the foundation of the state budgets lawmakers approve each year.

The council voted unanimously Wednesday to reduce its previous general fund tax collection projection for this fiscal year from 6.4% growth to 5%, reasoning that most fallout from current events in Washington won’t be felt in Hawaiʻi until next year.

That new projection means state government will have about $140 million less to spend this year than lawmakers expected based on the council’s last projection in January.

Still, that shouldn’t be a huge problem for the Legislature to manage because the state collected more than $300 million in unexpected estate taxes last fall. The state general fund remains on track to collect a total of about $10.1 billion in taxes this fiscal year, which would be an all-time record.

Looking ahead to the fiscal year that begins July 1, the council adjusted its tax collection projection for that year downward by about $200 million from the projection the council made in January. That translates into overall state general fund tax collections of more than $9.82 billion.

The council left its tax collection projections for the following five years unchanged, with members reasoning that its projections in January were already based on relatively weak economic growth in those years.

“The next round when we get together, hopefully we have a little more clarity,” said council member Wendell Lee.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the council’s projection of the decline in tax collections for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The projected decline in tax collections for that year is about $200 million, not $75 million.