Taxable sales jump 11 percent in December

Taxable sales jumped 11.2 percent statewide in December but the gains weren't in Clark and Washoe counties.

Instead, triple digit gains were reported by a series of counties lined up across Northern Nevada primarily because of purchases and business activity related to the Ruby Pipeline project - a major natural gas line being constructed from Wyoming to Oregon and California including across Nevada.

Deputy Taxation Director Brody Leiser said that project is generating significant amounts of taxable sales in the utilities, durable goods and related categories.

The result: a 120 percent increase in taxable sales for Elko; 149 percent for Humboldt; 108 percent for White Pine; and 44 percent for Pershing counties. The largest amount was in Elko, which reported $295.6 million in sales for December. The majority of that was the $169.6 million in utility category sales.

The other counties along that project reported a similar pattern of sales increases for the month.

By comparison, Washoe County reported an increase of 5.6 percent to $546.1 million and Clark a 2.8 percent increase to $2.73 billion.

Statewide, total taxable sales were $4.06 billion December, nearly $400 million more than the same month of 2009.

In Carson City, the increase was a more modest 4.9 percent with $66.45 million in sales. Carson City Finance Director Nick Providenti described it as "just a good month."

"Overall, everything was up just a little bit," he said.

Wholesale goods categories both durable and non-durable were up double digits, building material sales increased 9 percent to $4.12 million, general merchandise sales rose 8.2 percent to $16.7 million and food services and drinking places totaled $6..4 million, a 7.3 percent increase. Auto sales were up 6 percent in Carson to $13.2 million.

Overall for the first half of this fiscal year, Carson City is up 5.8 percent over the same period last year with $368.2 million in sales.

Churchill County sales for the month were up just 1.2 percent to $25.7 million. A 52 percent increase in the utilities category to $3.7 million and jumps in related categories such as mineral product manufacturing and metal project manufacturing offset decreases in several other categories there.

Esmeralda sales also were up dramatically - 122 percent to $1.16 million. There the boom seems to be coming from mining, which directly saw an increase from $511 in sales a year earlier to $189,334. Manufacturing, utilities, retail categories and food and drink sales all benefited from the spending by miners as well.

Storey County saw sales rise $8.39 million, a 101 percent jump. Sales of wholesale durable goods jumped nearly tenfold to $4.3 million and significant increases were reported in food, chemical and other manufacturing, warehousing and retail categories

Douglas County was flat, reporting an increase of just $160,000 to $53.3 million.

Only one county reported a decrease for December - Lincoln where total sales decreased 26.5 percent to $1.87 million.

Statewide, taxable sales are up 4.73 percent for the first six months of the fiscal year. The General Fund portion of the sales tax is 2.25 percent or $8.8 million above the Economic Forum forecast this far.