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State sales tax declines
By Mary Madewell
Published December 14, 2009
The City of Paris, along with most other Lamar County municipalities, saw a significant drop in December sales tax checks compared to a year ago.
But Paris continues to outpace the state’s year-to-date average compared to 2008. Paris’ 2009 collections show a 7.65 percent increase compared to a 5.3 percent decrease statewide, according to a monthly report by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs.
Paris received a $491,261.94 reimbursement check for December based on sales taxes collected in October. That compares to the $566,102.49 the city received in December 2008 and reflects a 13.22 percent decrease. For the year, the city has received $7,591,224.29 compared to the $7,051,372.26 received in 2008, a 7.65 percent increase. Paris is the only taxing entity in the county to remain ahead of 2008 distributions.
The City of Blossom has been hit the hardest with a 20.54 decrease for the year, collecting $51,528.28 compared to $64,850.48 in 2008, Toco is down 18.18 percent; Sun Valley, 12.79 percent; Roxton, 4.81 percent; and Deport, 6.77 percent.
Delta County taxing entities — the cities of Cooper and Pecan Gap — both showed positives year-to-date with Cooper up .42 percent and Pecan up 7.10 percent for the year. Cooper has collected $80,183.82 for the year compared to $79,840.54 in 2008 and Pecan Gap has collected $4,764,53 compared to $4,448.53 in 2008.
Sales tax collection in Honey Grove in particular and Fannin County in general are down for the year.
Honey Grove showed a 6.29 percent decline while the county came up 4.80 percent short of 2008 collections.
Red River County is behind 2008 totals by 4.40 percent. Although Clarksville showed a 18.71 percent increase in December allocations compared to December 2008, the city is down 6.49 percent on the year. The City of Annona, the only place in the county with alcoholic beverage sales, showed a 4.27 percent gain on the year and a 10.49 gain in December. Avery was down 4.24 percent on the year; Detroit, down .1 percent and Bogata up 1.92 percent.
Statewide, sales taxes have been on a downhill slide.
“Sales tax collections, declining since February 2009, continued to be weak in November,” Combs said. “Compared to a year ago, sales tax collections were down across all major sectors of the Texas economy, including oil and natural gas production, construction, manufacturing and retail trade.”
The comptroller sent cities, counties, special purpose districts and transit systems $417.1 million in December sales tax allocations, down 14.6 percent compared to December 2003.
The final sales tax allocation of 2009 brings local sales tax revenue for the year to $5.6 billion, 5.1 percent less than in 2008.
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