Nye County sales tax figures show increases

Nye County sales tax statistics continue to show increases, according to figures from the Nevada Department of Taxation.

The July taxable sales in Nye County totaled $58,419,357, an increase of 47.3 percent over $39,654,278 in July 2012. The county will receive $1.057 million for consolidated tax collections in July.

The July figures comes after the end of the fiscal year June 30, in which taxable sales rose 67 percent from $498 million in fiscal year 2011-12 to $832 million in FY 2012-13. But the actual Nye County collections from the basic and supplemental city-county relief tax, or sales tax, only increased about 8.2 percent in the 2012-13 fiscal year, from $10.54 million to $11.4 million due to sales tax breaks for renewable energy projects.

Specialty trade contractors, which includes construction of renewable energy projects like the SolarReserve project near Tonopah, had $19.4 million in taxable sales in July 2013, a 2,088 percent increase from $888,260 in July 2012.

Other large economic categories for sales tax collections showing increases in July included chemical manufacturing, up 27 percent from $2.7 million to $3.42 million; machinery manufacturing, which had a 51.4 percent increase in taxable sales, from $1.5 million to $2.27 million and nonstore retailers who showed a 17.9 percent increase in taxable sales, from $908,679 to $1.07 million.

But other economic categories were down. Motor vehicle and parts dealers had 5.5 percent less taxable sales in July 2013 than July 2012, dropping from $5.5 million to $5.23 million.

Support activities for mining dropped 58 percent from $1.37 million in taxable sales to $576,958. Sales of building material and garden equipment dropped 2.1 percent from $2.6 million to $2.55 million. General merchandise stores had a drop of .3 percent in taxable sales from $3.77 million to $3.76 million. Food services and drinking places experienced a 16.7 percent drop in taxable sales, from $3.5 million to $2.91 million.

Taxable sales in Nye County have been up by wide margins in every month so far in 2013 compared to last year. In April and February taxable sales were up over 139 percent from the same month last year. In March taxable sales were up 111 percent, January figures were up 107 percent.