Dateline: April 19, 2007

City sales tax receipts up

AUSTIN – Texas Comptroller Susan Combs said last week the state received $1.53 billion in sales tax revenue in March, up 11.9 percent compared to March 2006.

Clarendon’s sales tax figures climbed again with a total allocation of $20,256.10, up 7.4 percent compared to the same time last year.

The city’s year-to-date sales tax revenue figure edged up 2.17 percent to $92,622.41.

Howardwick’s figures were also up with an allocation this month of $1,063.19, reflecting an increase of 21.29 percent and pushing that city’s total for the year up 9.7 percent to $3,845.60.

The monthly allocation was down, however, for the City of Hedley, which fell 37.5 percent to $332.28. Hedley is down more than 18 percent to $2,460.94 for the year-to-date.

“The national economy is showing signs of a slowdown, particularly in the housing sector, but we are still seeing healthy growth in the Texas economy and a corresponding growth in state sales tax revenue,” Combs said.

Comptroller Combs sent April sales tax allocations of $272.4 million to Texas cities statewide, up 9.3 percent compared to April 2006.  Calendar year-to-date, city sales tax allocations are running 7.1 percent higher than last year. 

State sales tax revenue for March, and April payments made to local governments last week, represent sales that occurred in February.