Churchill County sees bump in taxable sales

While statewide taxable sales were up a solid 5.5 percent in October, Churchill County’s figures rose 9.1 percent.

The final result, therefore, produced $24.39 million in Churchill County.

In Churchill County, the story was the Utilities category, which jumped 830 percent from $245,538 to $2.29 million, and Heavy and Civil Engineering, which went from a negative $8,256 one year ago to $1.2 million in the black this October.

Auto sales helped out with a 30 percent increase to just more than $4 million. In addition, Food Services and Drinking Places posted a 40.6 percent increase to $3.1 million.

Those gains, however, were offset somewhat by the Nonmetallic Mineral Product Manufacturing category that went from a positive $93,181 to a negative $1 million for October.

But Food Services and Drinking Places rose 12.6 percent to $11.88 million for the quarter. Two other areas showed healthy increases —Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers at $4 million, an increase of 30.9 percent, and General Merchandise Stores at $3.5 million.

Churchill County Comptroller Alan Kalt said the first quarter of the fiscal year has shown an overall increase.

“For the first four months, taxable sales have increased 7.8 percent,” he said, adding taxable sales are up because of tax abatements and audits completed by the Nevada Department of Taxation. “We will continue to monitor.”

Consolidated tax receipts for the current fiscal year are slightly higher than 2016. According to Kalt, the county collected $5,337,339 for the fiscal year. He said the figure for the prior year after four month was $5,194,555.

The C-Tax consists of the cigarette, liquor, government services and real property transfer taxes plus the basic and supplemental City County Relief Taxes.

That money is apportioned out to the counties by a state formula.

Storey County reported a huge percentage increase in October — 78.6 percent — much of which can be attributed to the purchase of equipment at the Tesla plant. But there are several other companies also building or expanding at the Reno Tahoe Industrial Center. Taxable sales totaled $15.96 million in Storey.

Washoe County too had a strong month, reporting total taxable sales of $621.2 million. That’s 10.4 percent higher than the previous October. Washoe reported double digit increases in a variety of categories including wholesale durable goods, Eating and Drinking Places, auto sales and building material sales. Washoe is up 9.7 percent for the first four months of this fiscal year.

The only parts of western Nevada not in the black for October were Douglas and Lyon counties. In Lyon, total sales dipped 6.4 percent to $31.86 million because of decreases in a laundry list of mostly smaller categories.

In Douglas County, total taxable sales were down by 7.2 percent to $50.6 million. Building Materials sales accounted for a good chunk of the loss, totaling $2.78 million — half the previous October’s total of $5.5 million. Other contributors to the decrease were auto sales that fell 6.2 percent to $2.2 million and wholesale durable goods, which fell 35.2 percent to $2.89 million.

Carson City had a banner month, growing sales 11.8 percent to $69.65 million.

The number was pretty much driven by the 9.4 percent increase in car sales — Carson’s largest sales tax generator — to $21.99 million.

Statewide, taxable sales are up 5.2 percent over the first four months of the fiscal year.

Food Services and Drinking Places, far and away the largest taxable sales category because of the southern Nevada tourist industry, reported just more than $1 billion in sales. Next highest is auto sales at $486.5 million – less than half of what tourism brings in.