Cape County sales-tax revenue flat for year, but use-tax revenue has increased

Seven one-hundredths of a percentage point.

That’s the total increase in sales-tax revenue received by Cape Girardeau County in 2019 compared to 2018. The county’s half-cent sales tax is the county’s largest source of revenue.

The Missouri Department of Revenue made its 12th monthly sales-tax payment to the county earlier this month and according to figures released this week by Cape Girardeau County Treasurer Roger Hudson, the county’s 2019 sales-tax revenue totaled $7,362,067.49, which is 0.07% more than the 2018 total of $7,356,605.67.

“It’s flat,” Hudson reported.

The December sales-tax payment does not include the holiday shopping season. Tax revenue generated by Black Friday purchases, as well as all other retail purchases made in Cape Girardeau County from about the third week of November until roughly the third week in December will be paid to the county in January.

“Because we’re on a cash accounting system, we don’t care when they (the Department of Revenue) collects it, we only care when we get it,” Hudson said.

The state’s December sales-tax payment to the county of $638,857.70, which was more than $9,000 less than the December 2018 payment of $647,944.32 and the lowest December payment in at least the last five years.

But while the sales-tax total this year was relatively flat compared to 2018, the use-tax revenue increased more than 4.3% over the same period. The use tax, approved by county voters in 2015, is a tax on items bought elsewhere and brought or shipped into the state, such as online purchases. As of this month, the county’s use tax has generated $1,291,487.12, an increase of more than $53,000 over last year’s use-tax total of $1,238,000.57.

Both the sales- and use-tax totals were buoyed slightly this year by interest payments, something Hudson said usually doesn’t happen.

“They (the Department of Revenue) used to pay us interest twice a year, but after 2008, I think they considered their banking cost was more than the interest we were getting when interest rates went almost to zero,” he said.

This year, interest generated by sales tax amounted to $14,321.57 while the use-tax fund earned an additional $5,709.81 in interest.

“But interest rates can vary from year to year, so the real number that’s important to me is the tax revenue itself,” Hudson said.

The county treasurer said he doesn’t expect to see significant sales-tax growth in the foreseeable future.

“It’s going to be difficult for retail sales (in the county) to increase unless we have more people, an increase in wages or more high-paying manufacturing jobs employing a lot of people,” he said. “But that’s what every county wants and that’s why our sales tax only grew seven one-hundredths of 1%.”