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St. Lawrence County sales tax revenues drop 4.22 percent for third quarter 2015

Posted 10/17/15

By CRAIG FREILICH St. Lawrence County’s third quarter sales tax revenue is down about 4.22 percent from last year’s third-quarter report, according to St. Lawrence County Treasurer Kevin Felt. …

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St. Lawrence County sales tax revenues drop 4.22 percent for third quarter 2015

Posted

By CRAIG FREILICH

St. Lawrence County’s third quarter sales tax revenue is down about 4.22 percent from last year’s third-quarter report, according to St. Lawrence County Treasurer Kevin Felt.

Third-quarter revenue to the county reported by the state this week is $14,099,321 compared with $14,721,037 from July through September 2014. That’s $621,716 less this time.

Felt said his sales tax projection for this year was for two percent less than 2014, “and that was what we saw in the first and second quarter, but now we’re averaging closer to three percent,” Felt said.

Felt said he has heard that one large vendor filed its report to Albany late, and that at least one county might see more sales tax revenue once that is counted in, and he has a hope that it might work in St. Lawrence County's favor too.

A statement from the New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC) adheres to the conventional wisdom of lower gas prices generating less in taxes, and a stronger dollar suppressing sales to Canadian shoppers as reasons for the decline.

Felt also notes that online sales continue to grow, and that can have an effect on sales tax revenues, too.

While there has been movement toward forcing internet-based companies to pay sales taxes to states, “we can’t verify that we’re getting the sales tax we deserve from internet sales. It’s hard to identify, and we can’t verify it, and we can’t prove it. It’s becoming a more important factor” because “it’s becoming tougher to buy locally.

“It’s important that we find some way rebound from this economic recession we’ve been in here and can’t seem to get out of.” For better revenues, he said, we need “an increase in the tax base and more places for people to buy locally. Buy local as much as possible,” he said.

The NYSAC statement notes that counties with more than 200,000 people – which does not include St. Lawrence County – “are seeing slight increases in sales tax collections, which could mean more diverse economies are more able to absorb the decline in motor fuel sales tax.”