Tiny Town Racking Up Serious Sales

Round Top’s sales tax boom just keeps echoing, month after month. With December’s distributions from State Comptroller Glenn Hegar, the tiny town has almost surpassed Flatonia in sales tax revenue.

For the final month of 2021, Round Top got $74,862 compared to Flatonia’s $32,190. For the entire year, Flatonia got $399,550, which is up 8.8% from this time last year.

But Round Top got almost as much, $363,393. And that’s up 57.5% from the $230,701 it received in 2020.

Nearby Carmine is booming too. It got a much smaller $132,893 for the year, but that’s up 35.0% from the prior year.

Both towns apparently benefitted from the resurgence of antiques sales compared to when Covid greatly reduced the crowds of shoppers. The construction of new venues has also meant expanded sales times. Originally the big antiques fairs were held for only two weeks in the spring and fall. Now sales events are held almost year-round.

Only locations actually inside the city limits are taxable for the cities, however. That means the tents of Warrenton, Oldenburg and rural areas in general don’t get taxed by a city. State and county sales taxes apply to all of them, however.

Historically, Flatonia has always been Fayette County’s third largest recipient of city sales tax revenue. La Grange is largest, followed by Schulenburg.

If 2022 continues the pace set by the last half of 2021, however, Round Top will nudge Flatonia into fourth place.

--Larry Jackson