Small Town News

EB one of few cities seeing sales tax gain

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While down in most cases, local sales tax allocations from the State Comptroller Office for Wharton and its cities were at or less than the hit most of Texas felt.

East Bernard showed an increase as the city received a check for $15,341, up 20.11 percent from the $12,771 received last January.

Wharton's January allocation was $127,967 and down 7.41 percent from the January 2009 allocation of $138,214.

El Campo was off the most in the county with a check for $195,087 being down 11.9 percent from the same time last year. El Campo and Wharton each have a tax rate of 1.5 percent while East Bernard's rate is 1.25 percent.

The county received a check for $146,980, which was down 11.64 percent from a figure of $166,358. The county sales tax rate is 0.5 percent.

In her monthly news release, Comptroller Susan Combs said the state collected $1.65 billion in sales tax revenue in December, down 11.6 percent compared to December 2008.

"Declining sales tax collections, beginning in February 2009, have now extended through December 2009," Combs said. "As has been seen in the past several months, collections are down across most major sectors of the Texas economy, including oil and natural gas, construction, manufacturing and retail trade. It is expected the double-digit declines in tax collections seen over the last half-year will first moderate with collections returning to growth during the first or second quarter of 2010."

Combs sent cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose taxing districts their first sales tax allocations of 2010 -- $405.2 million, down 11.8 percent compared to January 2009.

Combs sent January sales tax allocations of $274.4 million to Texas cities, down 11.4 percent compared to January 2009. Texas counties received sales tax payments of $24.3 million, down 16.1 percent compared to last January.

In addition, $16.2 million went to 163 special purpose taxing districts around the state, down 11.5 percent compared to last January. Ten local transit systems received $90.1 million in sales tax allocations, down 11.6 percent compared to a year ago.

December state sales tax collections and January allocations to local governments represent sales that occurred in November.



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© 2010 East Bernard Express East Bernard, Texas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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