Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar last week said state sales tax revenue totaled $3.07 billion in January, 0.3 percent less than in January 2020.
The majority of January sales tax revenue is based on sales made in December and remitted to the agency in January.
Sales tax revenue is up slightly in Freestone County, by 3.4% over last year’s numbers. However, sales tax was down in the state of Texas, overall.
“The slight decline in total sales tax revenue masks starkly contrasting results among economic sectors, with strong gains in collections from retail trade offset by continued deep declines in collections from recreational services and the oil- and gas-related sectors,” Hegar said.
Looking at individual cities in Freestone County, three of the four showed an increase over last year’s collections.
Streetman increased their sales tax collection by a whopping 108%.
Wortham increasednby 34% and Fairfield was up by 7%.
Teague showed a19% decrease in sales tax revenue over last year.
Here are the January numbers for cities in our county:
–Fairfield: $121,650.79 ($113,969.93 last year)
–Streetman: $6,425.32 ($3,091.21 last year)
–Teague: $37,200.11 ($45,907.52 last year)
–Wortham: $14,120.99 ($10,519.50 last year)
Texas Comptroller Hegar continued his summary of the overall state sales tax:
“Stay-at-home spending trends that emerged in response to the COVID-19 pandemic continued through the Christmas shopping season, with elevated receipts coming from online vendors, electronics and appliance stores, building materials and home furnishings stores, big box general merchandisers and sporting goods stores.
“While oil and gas well drilling activity has risen from lows reached earlier in the pandemic, the December active rotary rig count for Texas was still more than 60 percent lower than a year ago, depressing sales tax receipts from mining, construction, manufacturing and equipment rental and leasing businesses.
“Receipts from restaurants also remained below levels seen a year ago, while receipts from recreational services — such as live music venues, amusement parks, bowling centers and fitness clubs — remained severely depressed.”
Total sales tax revenue for the three months ending in January 2020 was down 3.9 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Sales tax is the largest source of state funding for the state budget, accounting for 59 percent of all tax collections. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continued to be evident in some sources of revenue in January 2020.
Texas collected the following revenue from other major taxes:
–motor vehicle sales and rental taxes — $408 million, down 13.4 percent from January 2020;
–motor fuel taxes — $294 million, down 4.7 percent from January 2020;
–oil production tax — $255 million, down 35.7 percent from January 2020;
–natural gas production tax — $103 million, down 21.6 percent from January 2020;
–hotel occupancy tax — $27 million, down 35.1 percent from January 2020; and
–alcoholic beverage taxes — $94 million, down 27.6 percent from January 2020.
For details on all monthly collections, visit the Comptroller’s Monthly State Revenue Watch. For an extensive history of tax policy developments and fees since 1972, visit our recently updated Sources of Revenue publication.
