Small Town News

EB collecting sales tax faster than state average

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AUSTIN -- While Texas Comptroller Susan Combs said this week the state collected $1.75 billion in sales tax in August, down 12.5 percent compared to a year ago, the cities of Wharton and East Bernard continue to run ahead of last year's pace.

"Monthly sales tax collections continue to decline as most major sectors of the economy, including oil and gas, construction and retail trade, continue to struggle," Combs said. "For fiscal 2009, which began in September 2008, state sales tax collections totaled $20.9 billion. Collections grew through January 2009, but monthly declines since that time resulted in overall collections dropping by 2.7 percent for the state fiscal year."

East Bernard is up both in its monthly payment and year to date. The September payment was $29,485, up 16.34 percent from the previous year's $25,343 for the same month while the year to date total of $230,969 is up 9.68 percent from the $210,566 received through the first nine months of 2008.

As a group, the combined total for East Bernard, Wharton and El Campo cities is down 14.1 percent for the month, $387,697, and now is behind for the year at $3,711, 686, 1.69 percent.

Wharton County's figures are off last year's even more than the cities. A September check for $151,431 was off 38.37 percent from a September 2008 figure of $245,738. For the year to date, the county has received $1,493,921, down 15.78 percent from a figure of $1,773,920.

In total, local governments will receive $428.3 million in monthly sales tax allocations on Monday, a 12.9 percent decrease compared to a year ago. So far this calendar year, local sales tax allocations are down 3.3 percent compared to the same period in 2008.

The state and local sales tax figures represent sales that occurred in July.

The Comptroller's next local sales tax allocation will be made on Friday, Oct. 9.



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© 2009 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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