Gov. Nathan Deal says Georgia's tax collections rose by more than 5 percent last month and are nearly 7 percent ahead of last year for the first four months of the fiscal year.

The figures released on Tuesday show net tax collections for October totaled $1.3 billion, an increase of $67 million or 5.4 percent compared to October 2010. Through four months of fiscal year 2012, net revenue is $5.36 billion, up $339 million or 6.8 percent from a year earlier.

Deal notes that it's the 16th consecutive month that the state's revenues exceeded the figure for the same month in the previous year. But he says the revenues have been softening since August, and that reaffirms his stance of cautious optimism about Georgia's economic outlook.