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Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced Wednesday, Oct. 12 he will send cities,counties, transit systems and special purpose districts $1.06 billion in local sales tax allocations for October, 17.4% more than in October 2021.
Locally here in Mount Pleasant and Titus County, increased sales tax collections means more money for our municipalities operating budget, which translates to more money for infrastructure improvements, job creation, and improvements around the city such as parks and recreation.
Mount Pleasant City Manager Ed Thatcher noted about the numbers, ““We are blessed to have a strong local economy with businesses, restaurants and retail establishments working hard to thrive in today’s environment,” said Ed Thatcher, City Manager of the City of Mount Pleasant. “As a municipality, we are intentionally conservative when forecasting sales tax revenue for budgeting purposes. But we have consistently seen an upward trend during the past three years with often double digit increases year over year or month to month.”
While local school districts do not benefit directly from the sales tax allocations, sales taxes are the largest source of state funding for the state budget, accounting for 56% of all tax collections, according to the comptroller’s office. The state does fund the school districts, so the more money in the state coffers, the more state lawmakers have to dole out to education.
Here in Titus County, the sales tax allocation for the current period is $261,609.92, a figure up from the $223,652.77 during the same period a year ago, an increase of 16.97 percent. Year to date, Titus County has received $2,614,923.15, more than 10 percent more than the $2,374,058.52 allocated by this same time in 2021.
Neighboring counties such as Camp, Franklin and Red River have seen similar boosts in their sales tax allocations.
On Monday, Oct. 3, Hegar said state sales tax revenue totaled $3.69 billion in September, 17.2% more than in September 2021. Hegar noted, “Surging receipts from nonretail sectors indicate that the exceptionally strong spending by businesses in recent months continued unabated. Spurred in part by inflation in building materials and other business input prices, the mining, construction, manufacturing and wholesale trade sectors have each exhibited double-digit growth in sales tax remittances for 10 or more consecutive months.”
Total sales tax revenue for the three months ending in September 2022 was up 14.9% compared with the same period a year ago. Texas collected $616 million from motor vehicle sales and rental taxes, up 13% from September 2021. Texas collected $328 million from motor fuel taxes, up 2% from September 2021. The state collected $552 million from oil production taxes, up 41% from September 2021. The state collected $480 million from natural gas production taxes, up 91% from September 2021