Douglas sales tax collections flattens out

Douglas County taxable sales for January dropped 2.1 percent compared to January 2009.

Douglas merchants took in $40.8 million, just under $1 million less than last year.

So far the county is down 12 percent for the year.

Carson City continued a double digit percentage decrease in January, allowing the gap between Carson and Douglas to close further.

Carson City saw a 16.2 percent drop in taxable sales for January, finishing the month at slightly more than $47 million.

Motor vehicle sales, normally Carson City's largest sales tax generator, were down 16.6 percent. The $10.3 million in car sales was followed closely by the $9.3 million in general merchandise store sales - a 9 percent decrease.

The capital's next largest category, food services and drinking places, was down 10.7 percent to $5.8 million for the month.

The roughly $6.2 million gap between Douglas and Carson is the smallest in the last year, which has seen Carson City drop from a peak of $65.4 million in June to January's $47 million. Douglas peaked at $53.1 million in sales during December. January was the capital's lowest result since the beginnning of 2009. Douglas' nadir was in February 2009.

Statewide, January taxable sales were down another 8.1 percent statewide but there were some hopeful signs in the numbers released Tuesday.

Notably, the numbers for taxes collected from accommodations - a key indicator for the tourism industry - rose 14 percent compared to January 2009. Sales of home furnishings - a statistic closely tied to home sales - rose 6.9 percent.

In addition, sales and use taxes were down just 3.26 percent compared to January 2009 with the state bringing in $220 million.

Storey County reported a 53 percent increase for January to $5.5 million. The reason for that boost didn't seem to follow a particular pattern since most of the increase was in two completely unrelated categories: Food manufacturing went from $694 a year ago to $544,384 this January and fabricated metal manufacturing jumped from $18,991 to $1.98 million this year.

Lyon County suffered a 22.2 percent drop to $17.7 million. For the fiscal year so far, Lyon is down more than 18 percent. That county also has the state's worst unemployment rate.

Statewide, construction suffered the most damage, falling 57.4 percent behind the same month a year ago.

While Clark County was down 8.3 percent to $2.1 billion, Washoe fared better at just 4.8 percent down - which translates to $373 million in taxable sales.