The sky may be falling in some places, but business is up in Arkansas City and Cowley County.
While the economy struggles nationwide, and statewide, locally sales tax receipts are up.
Arkansas City City Manager Steve Archer believes the city is in good shape based on sales tax receipts from the State Dept. of Revenue.
Sales Tax receipts are up for the year by 2.3 percent through April. The city collected $1,281,720.07 through April of 2009, compared to $1,253,226.19 through April of 2008.
Archer said revenues "are on target."
These are figures from the state Dept. of Revenue, and are sales tax receipts. Property tax still has to come in, and the second largest one of the year will come in June, and that will determine a lot about the financial state of the city.
Archer says sales tax receipts were higher in January and February. He said that was likely because gas was $4 a gallon and people were staying at home to shop.
March was way down according to state figures.
April was back up. Archer said sometimes where the payments fall can have an impact on the percentage. If the payment falls on the 30th it may not show up until the next month, so it is better to look at the year-to-date figures.
Winfield's year-to-date sales tax figures are up 6.6 percent, and the county is up 4.4 percent.
Statewide sales tax receipts are down 6.3 percent.
Here is a link for more tax stats.
http://www.ksrevenue.org/
I do lots of shopping in AC, always have, just buy my appliances elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteI buy what I can here, but if it's a big ticket item (other than cars), I will drive to where the prices are lower.
ReplyDeleteThis is good news. Good to hear.
ReplyDeleteGun sales are through the roof because people fear the government. You can't even get ammo right now, and if you are lucky enough to find some it's priced double or triple what it was before Obama got elected.
ReplyDeleteOh please lets not start a gun debate.
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting is that even things like $4.00/gal. gas (while it is a problem for one group) is a beneifit to another area of the local/national economy. There was a resurgence of the domestic/area oil industry and the search for alternative sources/options.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't help ease the pain of lessening the residual income for many or the impact on businesses but it does help offset some of the loss of tax revenue due to reduced consumption.
What's bad is we build our tax systems around
fluctuating circumstances and find out they fail. Ex. All the money that the State lost for road tax from fuel when consumption dropped and now they are considering taxing miles.
Don't get me wrong I believe in a consumer based tax system - I just have doubts about those who control the checkbook.
It's not a debate, it's the truth. Gun sales are up?? CHECK! Ammo is hard to find? CHECK! If you can find it, it's overpriced?? CHECK!
ReplyDeleteNone of that was up for debate, it's simply the truth.