Cape Girardeau County sales tax revenue stationary, use-tax revenue growing

Cape Girardeau County Treasurer Roger Hudson informed the county commissioners Thursday, Nov. 9, about updated sales- and use-tax numbers.

Sales tax numbers for the county stood at $718,897 for the month, a 0.39% decrease from November 2022.

For the whole year, sales tax returns for the county stood at about $8.46 million, just a 1.09% jump from a year ago.

This represents the highest year-to-date sales tax amount in November since at least 2018. It also represents the smallest year-to-year growth since 2019.

"... You would think with inflation, people having to buy higher prices, that it would be more like (previous years) since inflation is 6, 7, 8%, but that's not happening," Hudson said. "That may be because with prices being up on everything, not just taxable items (and) retail items ... people may not have the additional dollars to spend on retail. They may be actually going out and buying less."

Use-tax results, however, stood at $420,894 for the month and $3.59 million for the year to date.

These were boosts of 56.24% and 28.92%, respectively, over November 2022's numbers.

Hudson said the bulk of these numbers come from the state taxing purchases made from out-of-state vendors.

He said the Supreme Court's South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc. decision in 2018 allows states to collect sales tax on purchases made from out-of-state sellers even if the sellers don't have a physical presence in the taxing state.

Only Commissioners Clint Tracy and Charles Herbst attended Thursday's meeting; Commissioner Paul Koeper was unavailable.

The two commissioners did approve a pay request of $436,025 in American Rescue Plan Act funds to Sides Construction of Jackson during their meeting.

The payment is for work done on the county's emergency operations center that is currently under construction.