Golden Triangle sees steady-ish sales tax
Despite the coronavirus shuttering doors in early March, a report from the Mississippi Department of Revenue on sales tax collections returned to cities shows sales tax collections have remained fairly steady throughout the Golden Triangle region.
The data show the City of Starkville received about $624,000 in sales tax in June, slightly higher than 2019 collections, which were about $604,000. For the year, Starkville’s sales tax collections are about $80,000 under where they were in 2019.
The City of West Point has actually seen sales tax revenue increase over the previous year’s numbers. For June 2020, West Point received about $237, 500, which is about $40,000 more than June 2019’s $195,800. For the year, West Point has collected about $350,000 more in sales tax this year than in 2019.
Columbus sales tax revenues have dropped about $175,000 for 2020, with about $9,575,000 being collected. At this time last year, the city had received about $9,728,000. MDR data for June show Columbus saw a slight decrease of about $4,000 in June, with approximately $892,000 being received for this year.
The Golden Triangle’s smaller municipalities have also seen sales tax collections remain close; however even slight decreases can hurt for towns operating on small budgets. For Sturgis, sales tax revenues decreased about $800 in June. The town collected $2,210 this year as opposed to $3,010 in 2019. For the year, Sturgis’ income
from sales tax
$7,000.
Data show a similar story in Maben, with June sales tax revenue about $1,000 less than the previous year. For the year, however, Maben is close to 2019, with collections under just $1,000 from 2019.
The Mississippi Department of Revenue also publishes sales tax data from the state’s universities, and Mississippi State has
is down about seen a significant decline. For the month of June, MSU received just $10,400, about $18,000 less than 2019. Sales taxes for the year at Mississippi State are down about $80,000.
Data from the Mississippi Department of Revenue is delayed three months due to the agency’s disbursement model. Sales taxes are collected by retailers in month 1, reported by businesses to the state in month 2 and disbursed to municipalities in month 3.
More information about sales tax collections can be found at dor.ms.gov/statistics