Clarendon sales tax revenue growing for second month

The City of Clarendon posted a strong gain on its sales tax revenue last week when Texas Comptroller Susan Combs announced the state’s February distribution.

Clarendon received $40,093.48, which is up 22.48 percent from $32,733.43 last February. That brings the city’s year-to-date tally to $64,489.20, an increase of 20.88 percent.

Howardwick also was up this month with a distribution of $1,024.69, up 60.93 percent from the same time last year and bringing that city to $2,308.57 for the year so far, which is up 52.81 percent.

Hedley fell 29.13 percent to $638.33. That city’s year-to-date tally stands at $1,220.57, which is down 2.18 percent from $1,247.87 at this time in 2010.

Comptroller Combs announced the state’s sales tax revenue in January was $1.83 billion, an increase of 10.4 percent compared to January 2010.

“Sales tax revenues have now improved for the last ten months, reflecting increased activity in almost all major economic sectors,” Combs said.

“The strongest growth was from sectors fueled by business spending, such as oil and gas activity. Tax collections from retail trade were also up.”

January state sales tax collections and February’s local sales tax allocations represent sales made in December, and also include earlier sales by businesses that report sales tax to the Comptroller on a quarterly or annual basis.

The Comptroller sent $440.3 million in sales tax to Texas cities, up 5.4 percent compared to February 2010 payments.

For details of February sales tax payments to individual cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose districts, locate the Monthly Sales Tax Allocation Comparison Summary

Reports on the Comptroller’s Web site at www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/allocsum/compsum.html.