Tulsa's sales-tax revenue during Christmas season down from last year
BY ZACK STOYCOFF World Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
2/12/13 at 5:23 PM
The monthly sales-tax check containing Tulsa's revenue for the end of the Christmas shopping season was 3 percent less than the same period a year earlier, reports show.
The Oklahoma Tax Commission's February check to the city was $20,625,648, the agency reported. That reflects sales taxes collected between Dec. 16 and Jan. 15.
Omitting routine interest paid by the tax commission, the city's revenue was $20,605,923, or $627,086 less than a year earlier and 0.6 percent less than last month's check.
That's the first annual decline in six months.
"A decline in monthly sales tax revenue isn't good news, but it reinforces the need for the city to operate conservatively and continue to try and reduce the costs and deliver services more efficiently," Mayor Dewey Bartlett said.
Sales tax revenues are now 6 percent below budget estimates, but the city's fiscal-year-to-date revenue of $154,654,370 is about 6 percent more than at this point in the previous fiscal year, officials reported.
The city had previously logged annual increases in each monthly check since August, including a 3.6 percent increase in taxes collected between Nov. 16 and Dec. 15.
However, annual comparisons of revenue collected before October are misleading because a .167-cent sales tax increase took effect Oct. 1, 2011, as part of the 2008 Fix Our Streets program.
The city's tax rate is now 3.167 cents.
Metro-area cities had mixed sales tax returns from the Tax Commission in February.
Revenue was higher than the previous month for Claremore, up 7.4 percent; Sapulpa, 6 percent; Coweta, 5 percent; Catoosa, 4.9 percent; Jenks, 3.6 percent; Sand Springs, 3.1 percent; Muskogee, 2.4 percent; Glenpool, 1.6 percent; and Owasso, 1.4 percent.
Revenue was lower for Wagoner, down 9.1 percent; Bixby, down 7.4 percent; Skiatook, down 5.5 percent; Collinsville, down 3.3 percent; and Broken Arrow, down .01 percent.
Oklahoma City's revenue fell 0.2 percent.
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