Sales tax revenues continues to struggle across region

SDN Staff Report

Retail sales across the region got off to a rocky start for the new year.

According to new state numbers, taxes collected on January retail sales were up in only 37 of 94 towns across North Mississippi compared

to last year. But three of the four largest retail centers -Columbus, Starkville and Tupelo -- did see small gains.

Those three weren't enough to lift the total across the region as revenues returned to the cities were almost unchanged from last year. Statewide, revenues returned to the cities were up 1 percent.

The numbers continue a broad trend of overall weaker local tax collections as Internet sales slowly sap purchases from traditional brick and mortar stores.

This month's slight gain -from $695,014 to $701,620 -- was good news for Columbus, which has seen small declines in five of the previous six months.

Starkville's increase was negligible, rising to $527,471

from $527,063 last year.

Because of the way sales tax revenues are processed, taxes collected in January aren't returned to the cities until March. The state returns 18.5 percent of the taxes collected within the city and the rest goes toward funding state government. Taxes collected on retail sales outside of municipal limits all go to the state.

West Point received $139,493 as its share of revenues.

The city got no taxes last March as the state began making the city repay an overpayment. After taking an entire month's revenue last March, the state has been charging the city about $18,00 a month since then to recoup the overpayment. That will continue until June 2019.

Of the other top retail centers in the region, only Booneville joined Columbus, Starkville and Tupelo with

an increase. Cities like Oxford, Pontotoc and New Albany which all have recorded steady increases in recent months were down slightly from last year.

Besides Columbus and Starkville in the Golden Triangle area, only Caledonia and Crawford in Lowndes County, Ackerman in Choctaw County and Mantee in Webster County showed increases from last year. Sturgis,

Mathiston, Eupora, Weir, Artesia, Macon and Shuqualak were down.

Long- and short-term sales tax revenue trends are important to cities because those revenues make up between 40 and 50 percent of most towns' operating budgets. As the numbers have flattened in recent years, communities have had to turn to other revenue sources or reduce services.