City sales tax figure falls again

Clarendon’s sales tax revenue dropped for the third straight month when Texas Comptroller Glen Hegar released April allocations last week.

City sales tax figures slid 7.24 percent compared to one year ago, coming in at $36,571.80 compared to $39,429.81 for the same period one year ago.

The calendar year-to-date total has now slipped 1.20 percent to $159,219.56.

Howardwick’s sales tax revenue also continued sliding, falling 13.53 percent for the month to $1,118.01 and down 6.78 percent for the year at $5,480.43.

Hedley was up 20.56 percent this month with an allocation of $1,011.22 compared to $838.71 last year, but that city is still behind 15.64 percent for the year at $3,016.81.

A look at surrounding communities show a mixed bag of sales tax income figures for this month with Wellington down 13.13 percent, Childress up 12.56 percent, Memphis up 8.33 percent, Claude down 5.75 percent, and Shamrock down 10.21 percent. Amarillo was up 5.51 percent, and Pampa was down 13.63 percent.

Statewide, Hegar said sales tax revenue was $2.3 billion, up 1.1 percent compared to April 2014.

“As we predicted in January, state revenues have grown at a moderate pace. April is the second consecutive month of relatively slow growth in sales tax revenue, and I remain cautiously optimistic about our economic progress,” Hegar said. “Growth in total sales tax revenues collected this month was muted by the significant slowdown in the oil and gas mining sector; however, collections from other major economic sectors – including retail and wholesale trade, restaurants, construction, and manufacturing – continued to grow. This marks the 61st consecutive month of growth in sales tax collections.”

The sales tax figures represent monthly sales made in March as well as January, February and March sales by businesses that report tax quarterly.