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County Sales Tax Figures

With the Holiday Season now behind us, we move into the first quarter of the new year and find ourselves in that awkward position of needing snow to attract visitors while at the same time hoping for moderate temperatures so our heating bills don’t bury us before the tourist season returns in earnest. But as we begin the New Year it is also a good time to see how we finished 2012, so let’s take a look at the county sales tax figures.

As you all know, I try to regularly report the county sales tax numbers in this column. These figures derive from that half percent sales tax Door County (and most other counties in Wisconsin) charge. Merchants, innkeepers, restaurateurs, etc. collect this tax and submit it to the state (along with the state sales tax of 5%) and the state then redistributes the county tax portion back to the appropriate county. These distributions can be found – broken down by county – on the Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s website.

One of the things that is important to keep in mind when you look at these distributions is that the total for any month reflects exactly what was collected during the previous month. Each individual merchant (or innkeeper, or restaurant owner, etc.) may have differing deadlines for when the tax is due to be paid (i.e. monthly, quarterly, etc.). Thus, comparing January 2011 to January 2009, for instance, doesn’t provide any clear indication of an individual county’s economic health.

Looking at a broader picture of county sales tax collections, however, can provide at least some indication of the economic health of a county.

For some time, these figures have been grim, as collections steadily dropped, which, in turn, mean that spending on the peninsula has dropped. And in a very small, largely insulated economy like Door County, this has far reaching implications.

When I reported the sales tax figures through October 2012 at the end of the tourist season, I was happy to report that we were 4.4% over last year at that time and we were actually ahead of the collections through the same period in 2007.

Unfortunately, Door County sales tax revenue slowed during the last two months of the year. However, while we fell short of the year-end totals of 2007, 2008, and 2010 we did improve over last year. This year we collected $89,855.05 more than in 2011. This represents a 3% increase. So we are improving.

As we look forward into the new year, if we can once again manage a 3% increase in sales tax revenue over the collections last year, the county will take in more than $3.174 million dollars – the largest total since Door County implemented a county sales tax.

The national economy is still managing just the slightest growth but, since we managed a 3% increase during an election year with all the divisive politics leading into and following the election, another 3% growth (if not slightly better) seems to be a reasonable expectation.

Now we just need the weather to cooperate – something we have yet to control.