Arkansas Blog

Meanwhile, over here in God's Country, we experience a 2-3 % growth in our local sales tax. We jps get a printed report every month at our qc meeting and at our meeting last night the report showed the increase continuing. Of course, our revenues are nowhere near what those big counties are and keep in mind the sales taxes received now were actually collected two months ago. The sales tax check we got Dec. 27 were October collections.

Something else to keep in mind about sales tax collections is the deductions before the local governments receive the same. The retailers get 1 %, the State gets 3 % and the county treasurer's office gets a colllection fee. So, probably around 6 % is taken off the top before local governments see the final amount put into the local treasury.

We have a county general one percent sales tax, a temporary county sales tax with a 7 year sunset clause (money dedicated to overhauling county roads) and each town has a one percent sales tax. All of which are voted on in referendums to the local populance.

Max, the report you rec'd from liberatas mentioned that in October the Fayetteville sales tax receipts were higher than it's northern sisters. On a county-wide comparison Vendorville led Washington County.

This trend will continue as Sam's Wholesale moved from Springdale to Fayetteville. Chickenopolis' head roosters noted it would mean a loss of close to $1million in tax receipts. However the new Fayetteville
Sam's club is the first in Ark to sell liquor/wine/beer. This will give an added boost to it's sales. It's also a larger store than the old one in Chickenopolis.

Keep in mind the local sales tax cap comes off of large purchases (over $2500) next month. That will surely bump up some tax collections. But with home sales off there will be losses from the customary and accompanying furniture and building material sales, both of which are big tickets.

ole george has led us into a recession and northwest arkansas has been hit. there are a lot of builders of mcmansions that have gotten stuck with them. it happens every time. when things gets good everybody and their brother think they can be a builder and buy a plot of land and put up some houses. they get stuck with them and the banks sell them for less than they are worth and people get good deals. it is usually particularly good in resort areas but i think hot springs was a little smarter this time, in other parts of the country there are real good deals on resort property. the genuses of nw arkansas thought they were never going to stop growing so they kept building and building. they thought the 26 year olds needed 4000 foot houses. well they don't. they need to build some nice 1200 to 1700 ft houses and put people in the size houses they should be living in. they are not sexy and they don/t have the profit but they are what the market needs.