Tag: sales tax

Sales Tax Numbers Posted For June. Texas FLAT But Lampasas UP 5.00%!

Well, you don’t see this too often – Lampasas FAR outperforming the entire state in sales tax receipts, PLUS a lot of other cities!

State of Texas was basically flat at -0.30% and now up a paltry 2% YTD compared to last year.

Lampasas was UP 5% – and is now basically flat (+0.63) YTD compared to last year.

Burnet: UP 0.31%

Marble Falls: DOWN 3.14%

Dallas: UP 0.15%

Austin: FLAT

This is the first time in forever I remember Lampasas beating EVERYONE! The weird thing is, our economic development director “resigned” last month and this is the first report since that happened. Coincidence?

Probably.

Lampasas Sales Tax Receipts Eke Out Tiny 1.2% Gain – Versus UP 6.66% For Texas.

Lampasas recorded a 1.2% gain in sales tax receipts for the month of May. Trailing the state as a whole, which saw a 6.66% rise in revenue.

Lampasas is now dead flat on YTD sales tax revenue – despite inflation AND the solar eclipse ‘bump’ in activity. Apparently, the eclipse was only worth about $2,800 in added revenue – a FAR cry from the $70,000 the City spent preparing for the eclipse.

How did other cities fare?

Burnet: UP a whopping 21.8%! I’m guessing this had to do with the eclipse and the giant party/festival they had there. That caused an extra $60,000 in revenue for city coffers.

Marble Falls: UP a modest 2%

Dallas: UP an impressive 9.35%

Austin: UP 4.5%

April Sales Tax Receipts – Lampasas Resumes Downward Spiral. DOWN 6.35% YOY

After a massive and inexplicable 19% RISE last month, this month sees the downward trend resume. See row 585 as always.

LAST April, we saw a +8.7% – which was the last positive print of 2023 before we took a nosedive. That doesn’t bode well for the next 6 months or so.

The state of Texas as a whole was barely positive at +0.32%

Sales tax receipts YTD are now basically flat (at -.025%) compared to this point last year – at $1.23 million.

How did other cities fare?

Burnet: Barely positive at+1.6%

Marble Falls: DOWN 6.18% – similar to Lampasas

Dallas: UP 4% – well above the state as a whole.

Austin: UP 9% – must be all those stupid Palestinian keffiyehs the UT students are buying by the thousands for their protests. Or perhaps the cops buying tear gas.

Lampasas Sales Tax Receipts Crushed Again – DOWN 3.30% From A Year Ago.

Oh dear – this is becoming a worrying streak!

We have now seen EIGHT monthly declines in the last nine months.

After last month’s 1.75% drop, sales tax for February (actually January collections) dropped again – DOWN 3.30% [row 585 as always].

Texas as a whole was UP only 0.62% – so once again, Lampasas trails the state in sales tax receipts. This time by nearly 4 percentage points!

Lampasas may have to toss out their usual assumption that sales taxes will grow to the sky and cover the cost of every moronic project they undertake.

How did other cities fare?

Burnet: UP 10% – crushing us again (was up 16.5% last month) – our sister city must have a REALLY good economic development director!

Marble Falls: DOWN 2.81%

Dallas: UP 33% (!!!)

Austin: UP 0.27%

Lampasas Sales Tax Receipts UP 10.2% Over Last March. State of Texas UP 12.8%

I have to admit, I am shocked these numbers continue to climb like this. A combination of inflation and libtards flooding our state keeps sales taxes going higher.

Lampasas trailed the state as a whole by 2.6 percentage points – an improvement over last month’s 6.2% gap.

LAST year, Lampasas saw an 18% increase [see row 585] in March 2022 compared to March 2021 – so quite a drop off from last year. The state of Texas saw a 28% increases last March compared to 2021.

Year-to-date, the City has collected $955,726 compared to $887,774 for the same period last year – an increase of 7.6% (roughly in line with inflation, I might add).

Now that Wool & Vine has gone bust, I guess we’ll see these sales tax numbers drop even more precipitously next month, right? LOL.

Lampasas Sales Tax Receipts Slow Drastically In October.

Well, I finally found the sales tax receipt number for October…and it ain’t real pretty.

[Payments to cities – see row 585]

Receipts grew only 3.44% compared to October 2021 – $251,000 versus $243,000 a year earlier.

Considering inflation is currently raging at anywhere between 8% and 12% (depending on who you believe) and that the state of Texas as a whole saw sales tax revenue increase almost 12% year-over-year, it is clear our City is now lagging badly.

If the price of everything went UP 10% in the last year, but your sales tax receipts (which are not adjusted for inflation) only went up 3.4% – then you are actually seeing a decline in sales.

All those millions borrowed by the City and the LEDC for their business park and other dubious projects? Don’t sweat that. According to Mayor Monroe:

“Typically, we are able to pay those down within the nine years and have saved a substantial amount of money”

I’m sure it’ll all work out. And if it doesn’t? Well, there are plenty of taxpayer cows to be milked harder if need be.

Latest Sales Tax Receipts UP 14.3% – Still Trail Texas

New sales tax numbers are out. Lampasas UP 14.3% compared to last September. Yipeee!

But for the entire state of Texas, sales tax numbers were UP 17.2%. D’oh!

We still trail the state. Surrounding “towns” like Kempner (+22.5%) and Hamilton (+19.5%) saw growth well above state average and crushed our nuts. I guess they have REALLY good Economic Development Corporations or something. If Kempner didn’t pussy out and come down hard on the coffee/bikini cafe some guy wanted to open, they’d probably see huge growth for two years!

Latest Sales Tax Receipts UP 12% – But Still Trail Texas

New sales tax numbers are out. Lampasas UP 12% compared to last August. Yipeee!

But for the entire state of Texas, sales tax number UP 13%. We still trail the state. But hey, it’s getting closer! Only off by one percentage point this time!

For the fiscal year, Texas saw sales tax receipts soar 19.3% while Lampasas is only up 9.47% year-to-date….roughly in line with inflation. There is no LEDC-led miracle growth here – just inflation.

Feb and March numbers compare state raw (unadjusted) to Lampasas raw numbers now.

Lampasas Sales Tax Receipts: Not As Great As The LEDC Brags About

Time to dive into sales taxes again. I do this because the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club does a lot of crowing about how they keep going up – implying that THEY have something to do with this. LOL.

In reality, the entire state of Texas has seen an explosion in sales tax receipts and the City of Lampasas actually TRAILS this trend badly.

For the months of February and March, the state of Texas gave two numbers – adjusted and unadjusted. This is due to winter storm Uri in 2021, which caused a disruption in receipts. I used the LOWER number just to be conservative. The state STILL stomped our numbers.

Remember: headline inflation during this period is around 8 or 9% and the TRUE inflation numbers are likely closer to 12 or 15%. If sales tax gains are up 8% but inflation is 14%, you are actually doing quite poorly.

As you can see, there is only ONE MONTH this year where Lampasas exceeded the trend for the entire state: May. In all likelihood, our May number was tainted by something being pulled forward from July – seeing as how July collapsed massively YoY (MINUS 7%).

The August numbers for Lampasas will be out in a week or so. We shall see.

BONUS DATA:

The state of Texas said recently that sales tax receipts have jumped 19.3% for the latest fiscal year (9/1/21 through 8/31/22).

In the latest LEDC packet, we learned that sales tax receipts are running 9.14% higher year-to-date (unclear if that means FISCAL year-to-date or CALENDAR year-to-date) – see page 33.

While it is not entirely an apples-to-apples comparison, we see that the City of Lampasas also lags badly here as well by 10 percentage points – barely matching inflation.