Taxable sales numbers rise in August

Taxable sales rose in August - the second month in a row of year-over-year increases.

But taxation officials say the increase can be attributed to the $149 million in taxable sales reported under the Department of Taxation's amnesty program. Without that, they say the total would have been just about the same as August 2009.

The increase for August was 4.8 percent compared to the previous year. Combined with July's 5.3 percent increase, state revenue collections are now more than 9 percent ahead of the projections by the Economic forum last January, a pad of some $10.8 million. Altogether, businesses reported a total of $3.22 billion in taxable sales in August.

Carson City also reported growth in taxable sales for August: 1.7 percent to $62.5 million.

"We're just happy to be positive," said Carson City Finance Director Nick Providenti, adding that the increase is better than city officials predicted when building their budget.

He said August 2009 numbers were inflated by the Cash for Clunkers program which produced a good bump for car dealers. In comparison, sales this August were down nearly

11 percent to $15.7 million.

Providenti said he is expecting a good boost from auto sales when September numbers are released because the month will be comparing to September 2009 when car sales slumped after that federal program.

"September numbers were really bad because everybody who wanted a car bought one in August (2009)," he said. "We're expecting much better this September."

In addition to that, he said Kohl's opened in September, which should boost retail sales numbers.

Douglas County was flat at $47.7 million. Retail categories there were generally down a bit and the largest Douglas category, eating and drinking places, fell 8 percent. But a variety of smaller categories combined to bring the month-end total to a wash with overall sales increasing just $4,000 to $47.7 million.

Statewide, only three counties were down for the month: Mineral, Lyon and Washoe. Lyon was off just less than a percent to

$28.4 million.

Storey County had huge increases in several unrelated categories, the largest being a jump in the non-store retail category from $117,267 to more than $1.8 million. Auto sales increased nearly 110 percent to $327,234, furniture manufacturing 100 percent to $196,085 and mining by

222 percent to $146,374.

The net increase for Storey was 85.5 percent to $5.6 million in August.