NEWS

JANUARY 2010                             

sales tax ytd

news story

12.12.09

based on sales tax collections – the christmas SHOPPING season wasn’t very good for area retailers. this month’s sales tax dollars to cities in liberty county were down 30.97 percent compared to the same time last year. taking a look statewide, sales tax collections were down for the ELEVENTH consecutive month as the recession continues in the lone star state. Texas Comptroller Susan Combs reports december collections across the state were down 11.6 percent – although that is an improvement from the previous month’s decline of 14.4 percent. Local sales taxes collected by the state in december, arrive at cities and counties in january. these revenues are then used by the GOVERNMENTAL entities in their budgets. in REAL DOLLARs, payments made this month to cities In liberty county were down a combined $213,677. taking a look at INDIVIDUAL cities, liberty was down 35.51 percent for december. SINce this is the january payment, that number also reflects the yearly decline. dayton saw a drop of a stunning 41.58 percent for the month while cleveland was down 21.39 percent. it was even worse in TINY devers where collections fell 65.04 percent in JANUARY. this month’s payment to the city of north cleveland was an eye-popping slide of 74.6 percent. again, these numbers reflect january sales tax allocations, which were collected on december sales. now, we’ll take a look at more positive numbers. for ames the amount was up a whopping 276 percent. daisetta had a healthy increase of 35.17 percent while the payment to kenefick jumped 9.71 percent. turning SOUTH to chambers county, mont belvieu EXPERIENCED a nice 5.52 percent increase in its january payment, but anahuac fell 45.36 percent. since our area was still rebuilding from hurricane ike last december and there was a CORRESPONDING increase in spending taking place, kshn took a look back at allocations from previous years to get a more accurate picture of december sales COMPARISONS. in the city of liberty, this month’s allocation was $208,510 – that is significantly less than the 2009 payment of $323,351. however, it is also less than both the 2007 and 2008 PAYMENTS for january. in fact, you have to go back to january 2006 to find a lower sales tax payment for the same month. in dayton, this year’s january allocation was $66,094 – that also is less than payments for the same month in 2009, 2008 and 2007. in cleveland, you have to go back to 2007 to find a lower payment for january as compared to this year’s payment. based on these numbers, the christmas sales season for local RETAILERS was not what they were hoping for to make their holidays bright.