Douglas sales tax drops 1.6 percent

While Douglas County posted a 1.6 percent decline in taxable sales for the month of November compared to last year, it showed a rare increase over October, according to figures released by the Nevada Department of Taxation on Tuesday.

Douglas merchants took in $43 million in sales during the month, which includes Black Friday, about $700,000 less than in November 2008.

The categories related to the Stateline casinos, including food service and drinking places, continued their deep slump. The county showed an improvement among miscellaneous retailers. That category doubled to $3.3 million.

Statewide, taxable sales fell again in November, but not by as much as state officials had expected.

The drop was 10.9 percent to just over $3 billion for the month.

But Taxation Director Dino Dicianno told the Economic Forum week he had expected worse. The average over the first five months of this fiscal year is 18.1 percent down compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year.

Dicianno said the numbers are a hopeful sign that the statewide decline may at least be slowing.

The worst numbers are still in the construction industry classifications - off by a whopping 44.6 percent for the month. Motor vehicle sales, normally Carson City's biggest sales tax category, were down 9.3 percent. But that is the first time in a year their decline has been in single digits.

In Carson City, the overall drop was 13.5 percent, driven in large part by a reduction of more than 15 percent in auto sales. Total taxable sales for the capital were $51.58 million, $10 million of which was in auto sales. General Merchandise Stores, in November, logged more sales than car dealers with $11.5 million. That is still down from a year ago but only by 5.6 percent.

Taxable sales in Clark County were down 10.7 percent to $2.26 billion while Washoe was off 13 percent to $398.7 million.

Gross revenue collections from the sales and use tax totaled $235.1 million for the month, a 6.55 percent decrease compared to November 2008.