State Sales Tax Revenue Totaled Nearly $4 Billion in April, and is down.
Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar released the state sales tax revenue information for the month of April 2024 on May 1, 2024. According to Hegar, sale tax revenue for the state totaled $3.96 billion in April, which is 3.2% less than in April 2023. The majority of April sales tax revenue is based on sales made in March and remitted to the agency in April.
Hegar said, “Monthly state sales tax collections fell compared with a year ago, reflecting a slowdown in spending even while employment and income continue to grow,” He went on to say, “A continuing downtrend in remittances from business-related sectors and a drop in receipts from the retail trade sector accounted for the decline. This trend in overall tax collections has been expected for some time now.”
According to the Comptrollers office, the City of Brownfield is up in sales tax revenue, despite the state as whole being down. Brown field brought in $132,790.88 which is up 16.60% from this time in 2023. Also year-to-date is up as well by 11.34% from $507,533.60 to $565,116.87. Terry County is up by 9.71% in sale tax revenue bringing in $56,157.85 compared to $51,187.53 last year. Year-to-date for Terry County is slightly up bringing in $249,658.83, which is an increase of .35% or from $248,787.05.
The City of Meadow also recorded an increase in sales tax revenue bringing in $1,651.79 compared to $1,441.61 from last year. The year-to-date revenue is also higher than last year from $7,350.36 to $7,780.60, which is a 5.85% increase. The City of Wellman had mixed revenues. For the month compared to a year ago, it brought in -9.80% less from $814.17 to $734.37. However, Wellman’s year-to-date increased by 68.21% from $2,598.61 to $4,371.36
“Remittances from the major sectors driven by business spending were all down last month compared with a year ago, as has been the trend this fiscal year. Meanwhile, receipts from the consumer-driven retail trade sector also came in below April 2023 totals, with receipts from most retail subsectors down. Receipts from online merchants, however, increased compared with a year ago, just slightly ahead of the rate of general inflation,” said Hegar.
“Receipts from restaurants grew moderately, though at less than the inflation rate for food away from home.”
Total sales tax revenue for the three months ending in April 2024 was up 0.7 percent compared with the same period a year ago. Sales tax is the largest source of state funding for the state budget, accounting for 57 percent of all tax collections.
Texas collected the following revenue from other major taxes:
- motor vehicle sales and rental taxes — $468 million, down 8 percent from April 2023;
- motor fuel taxes — $332 million, up 4 percent from April 2023;
- oil production tax — $518 million, up 15 percent from April 2023;
- natural gas production tax — $170 million, down 16 percent from April 2023;
- hotel occupancy tax — $83 million, down less than 1 percent from April 2023; and
- alcoholic beverage taxes — $164 million, up less than 1 percent from April 2023.
