City sees sales revenue heating up

Apr. 15—February's prolonged winter storm did little to chill the amount of sales taxes collected at local merchants.

The city of Royse City received record amount of sales tax rebate revenues this month and also saw a big boost in the amounts when compared to the same time one year agoaccording to a report issued April 7 by the office of Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar.

In a report issued April 1 Hagar said the freeze two months ago impacted revenues from across the state.

"Adjusted for the effects of delayed payments due to the late February winter weather disaster, March state sales tax collections continued to slump below levels of a year ago," Hegar said. "Collections from all major sectors other than retail trade and restaurants continued to decline, led by depressed receipts from oil- and gas-related businesses.

Royse City was to receive a sales tax payment of $369,243.78 this month, an increase of 23.2% from the $299,703.78 collected during April 2020.

The figures reflect the portion of sales taxes collected at local businesses in February, which were reported to the comptroller's office in March.

For the fiscal year so far, Royse City has taken in sales tax rebate revenue of a little more than $1.73 million, representing an increase of 24.21% from the $1.39 million received through April 2020.

Hegar said the state's sales tax revenue totaled $2.63 billion in March, 2.4 percent less than in March 2020. The amount, however, included some revenue remitted in March that in normal circumstances would have been received by the state in February.

After adjusting the March totals to account for March 1 activity, March sales tax revenue totaled $2.46 billion, down 8.6 percent from March 2020.

"Some of the trends established during the COVID-19 pandemic continued, as remittances from online retailers, building materials stores and sporting goods stores continued to show strong growth over the previous year," Hegar added. "Clothing and accessories stores and furniture stores showed declines, likely due to store closures caused by widespread power outages."