Published: February 20, 2008 10:30 am         

Mexia continues upward spiral on sales tax rebates

Seems as if every month, the City of Mexia shows increases in what it receives in state sales tax rebates.

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you. It’s true. Mexia consistently shows increases in some big bucks it receives from Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Susan Combs. She has distributed $640 million in local sales tax rebates for February, although the rebates do not reflect sales this month. January state sales tax collections and February’s local sales tax allocations primarily represent sales made in December, but also include earlier sales by businesses that report sales tax to the Comptroller on a quarterly or annual basis.

Mexia’s February check from the Comptroller is for $285,072.43, a modest increase from the $282,939.77 check received here last February. Mexia is also ahead in its two-month allocations from a year ago - $487,853.08, up from Year 2007’s check of $480,230.75.

Groesbeck’s February check amounts to $67,586.84, a sizable increase from last year’s $59,400.02 check. For its two-month total in 2008, the City of Groesbeck has gotten $106,874.99, a good increase over the 2007 year-to-date total, which was $98,145.49.

Coolidge’s February check totals $3,246.02, an increase from the $2,955.79 check one year ago. Coolidge’s two-month total stands at $4,274.67, an increase from the 2007 year-to-date, which was $3,452.66.

Kosse gets its latest check of $5,640.98, representing a whopping 254.90 percent increase from the $1,589.45 received at this time a year ago. Kosse, perhaps spurred along by more spending in advance of the Robertson County coal-fired plant, has an accummulative 2008 total of $9,873.55, representing a 127.49 percent increase from last year’s accummulative total of $4,340.31.

Thornton roped in a modest increase with the February check’s being $1,777.07, over $1,645.55 last February. However, Thornton has a slight drop for year-to-date - $2,585.53, from last year’s $2,648.18.

Comptroller Combs sent $434.3 million in sales tax checks to Texas cities, up 4.8 percent , compared with 2007 payments in February. Texas counties received February sales tax payments of $37.7 million, up six percent compared to last February.

Combs sent $640.8 million in local sales tax to Texas cities, counties, transit systems and special-purpose taxing districts, up 5.1 percent compared to sales tax distributions to local governments in February of 2007.

The state collected $1.85 billion in sales tax revenue in January, up 5.2 percent compared to January of 2007.

“State sales tax collections through the first five months of the fiscal yezr, September 2007 through January 2008, are up 6.8 percent compared to the same period last fiscal year,” Combs said. “While growth remains firm, it is slower than that of the past two years. This moderation is consistent with the slowing economy.”