LG Sales Tax Up for Month But Still Down for the Year

Making sense of Texas sales tax numbers is almost as difficult as understanding the COV-ID-19 numbers.

Cities and counties got their August sales tax rebates from Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar last week and considering the pandemic’s effects on businesses, numbers look good for most.

Of the 24 area towns tracked by the Record, sales tax revenue is actually up from a year ago for two-thirds of them.

Here in Fayette County, three towns are up while three are down.

But some entities saw startlingly big gains and others had surprising losses.

In nearby Lee County, for instance, the county’s revenue at this point a year ago was less than $1 million. But today, it’s over $2 million. That’s a 130 percent increase for the eightmonth period.

Yet Giddings, the county seat, is actually down from a year ago. The dip is only 1.6 percent, but the difference is stunning.

Businesses in the Giddings city limits collect a 1.5 percent tax for the city plus a half-cent tax for the county. The same is true for those in smaller Lexington. Those outside of the two cities collect only the half-cent county tax.

Yet county revenue has soared, while the cities have stayed about the same as a year ago.

The state does not reveal information about individual taxpayers, so there’s no ready explanation for the situation.

Nearby Colorado County barely had $1 million at this point last year. Now it’s well over a million and a half – up 46.0 percent, to be precise.

Yet Columbus, the county seat, and Eagle Lake are up only about 10 percent and Weimar less than 2 percent.

Austin County is down by double digits (11.7 percent), while its largest town, Sealy, is up a little bit and most of its other towns are up a lot.

For local officials in Fayette County, just staying even feels good as worries over shutdowns, re-openings and hospitalization concerns weigh on their minds.

La Grange got just over $189,000 for August, a 7.6 percent increase from the same month a year ago. Due to losses in earlier months, though, this still puts the city 6.4 percent behind, year-to-date.

Schulenburg got over $90,000 for the month, an 8.2 percent increase. That puts it up 9.0 percent for the year. Flatonia is also up for the year, by 3.1 percent.

Carmine has had the greatest growth. Despite a loss for August, Carmine is up 11.8 percent for the year.

Both Round Top and Fayetteville are down for the first eight months of the year.

Fayette County is running about even for the year. As of August, the county has received $1,411,525 in sales tax revenue, a dip of 1.1 percent from this time last year.