Carson City taxable sales up 16.2 percent

Auto sales drove a 16.2 percent increase in Carson City’s taxable sales in April.

Total sales for the capital were $95.6 million with car sales accounting for $29.8 million of that total.

Carson’s next largest categories, building material sales and General Merchandise Stores saw increases of 3.5 and 3.9 percent respectively, both coming in at about $11.7 million worth of sales.

Statewide, taxable sales totaled $4.56 billion and building material sales figured prominently in that increase, up 9.7 percent as the construction industry continued its recovery.

By far the largest overall increase was reported by tiny Storey County — a 757 percent increase over April 2016. In Storey, total taxable sales rose from $18.5 million a year earlier to $158.5 million this April.

The biggest increase there was in wholesalers of durable goods, a category that reported just shy of a 1,000 percent increase from $2.5 million to $95.8 million. Professional, Scientific and Technical Services went up by a similar amount from $3.4 million in taxable sales to $36.97 million.

All those increases were the result of activity at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center east of Reno, home to Tesla, Switch and Panasonic among other major corporations.

Churchill County reported a 12.2 percent increase to $25.39 million. That increase was spread across a number of categories but the biggest swings were in Repairs and Maintenance and Food Services and Drinking Places. Repairs went from a negative $995,476 a year ago to a positive $509,984 this past April.

Food Services reported a 21 percent increase to $2.77 million. Metal Manufacturing also posted a significant increase from just $35,159 to $467,041.

Douglas County reported $52.58 million in taxable sales, up 4.6 percent. Food Services and Drinking Places, the largest tax generator in Douglas, posted a 3.5 percent increase to $11.7 million. Building material sales were up 27.5 percent to $4.2 million and General Merchandise Stores 6.3 percent to $7.6 million while non-store retailers were up 17.4 percent to $1.87 million. Specialty Trade Contractors were up 39.9 percent to $1.3 million.

Lyon County posted a 5.7 percent increase to $33.6 million. The biggest increase was in auto sales that were up 47.6 percent to $5.2 million in April.

Eight of Nevada’s 17 counties reported increases during the month but nine reported a decrease.

The biggest negative was reported by Pershing County businesses which saw a 45.1 percent decrease to just $8.2 million. All of that decrease came from the Credit Intermediation and Related Activities category which fell form $8.6 million a year ago to just $12,307 this April.