Tax numbers flat in January

Nevada sales tax numbers continued on their rocky road to recovery in January, increasing four-tenths of a percent over the same month a year ago.

That gives the state a half-percent increase in taxable sales for the first seven months of this fiscal year -- significantly better than the 4.5 percent drop in December.

Total taxable sales for January were $2.4 billion. The total for the fiscal year so far is $18.4 billion.

Taxation Director Dave Pursell said one of the biggest increases statewide was in the automotive dealers and gasoline sales which rose 15.8 percent. The automotive category is also Carson City's biggest and helped boost sales in the capital by 7 percent in January to $62.6 million.

Washoe was also up a bit -- by six-tenths of a percent to $374.7 million -- as was Clark County -- 1.5 percent to $1.7 billion.

Though Carson and Washoe were up, a total of 10 Nevada counties, including Douglas, were in negative numbers for January -- five of them double digit negatives -- dragging the overall total down.

In addition to auto dealers and gasoline sales, business services were up statewide -- by 27.1 percent -- and construction special trade figures increased 14.8 percent.

Douglas County was down for the month by 3.1 percent -- reporting a total $40.3 million in taxable sales. Lyon was down 17.4 percent to $16.5 million.

Part of the problem in Douglas is the fact that the county was coming off a strong month in January 2001 while statewide retail and general merchandise stores reported smaller totals of taxable sales this year.