Carson City taxable sales increase by 5.8 percent

September’s taxable sales increased 2.5 percent to a total of $5.07 billion.

Taxation Director Bill Anderson said that’s the 99th consecutive month of increases over the same month a year ago.

Carson City reported a 5.8 percent increase — more than double that of the state — to a total of $104.3 million. That number was driven by the 10.4 percent increase in auto sales, the capital’s largest taxable sales generator. Car dealers sold $31.3 million worth of vehicles during the month.

Building Material sales also had a banner month, reporting $12.6 million in sales, a 12.7 percent increase.

Douglas County reported a 4.6 percent increase over the same month of 2017. Total sales there were $71.2 million. While far from the county’s largest categories, auto sales turned in a 36 percent increase to a bit more than $4 million and building material sales a 5.2 percent increase to $4.25 million. Amusement, Gambling and Recreation contributed a 40.7 percent increase to $2.9 million.

Those and other gains in smaller categories in Douglas helped offset the decrease in the county’s largest tax generator, Food Services and Drinking Places — primarily the south shore resorts at Lake Tahoe. In September, taxable sales in that category fell 24 percent to $12.3 million.

Churchill County reported a whopping 66 percent increase — all attributed to one category. Construction of Buildings reported $19.9 million of the county’s $44.2 million total taxable sales for the month. That’s an increase of better than 10,000 percent. In fact, without that, the county’s taxable sales would have been down $2.3 million in September.

Storey County, where taxable sales are intimately tied to business activity at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, saw a 65.2 percent decrease in September. Total sales fell to $46.8 million compared to $134.8 million a year ago.

Washoe County was up, although by just 1.7 percent. Washoe reported $746 million in sales in September. Clark County reported $3.7 billion, a 4.4 percent increase.

Statewide, Anderson said sales are up 5 percent for the first quarter of fiscal 2019. He said just five categories account for more than half of all taxable sales in July, August and September. Because of the resorts in Southern Nevada, Food Services and Drinking Places claimed the largest share followed by auto sales. Those two categories alone accounted for $4.73 billion of the total $15.1 billion in sales.

In all, 14 of Nevada’s 17 counties reported gains over the first quarter of last year. Eight rural counties grew in double digits through that period.