January sales tax revenues dip 7.6%

St. Mary Parish Sales and Use Tax collections started off 2015 with a 7.6 percent drop compared to January 2014, which Parish Sales and Use Director Jeffery LaGrange believes may be due to people making fewer purchases as a result of low oil prices, he said.
Collections for January’s sales and use taxes totaled about $4.75 million compared to the approximately $4.85 million collected in January 2014, according to LaGrange’s report.
Excluding collections from audits, the parish’s 4.3 percent sales tax revenues decreased by 7.6 percent from January 2014 to January 2015, he said. In January, the parish collected $454,084 from audits, while the parish took in $199,714 from audits in January 2014, he said.
“People are hunkering down. They’re battening down the hatches. They’re waiting to see what’s going on in the oil field,” LaGrange said. “I think you’ll see a dip in big ticket items while people just hold on.”
“We had a big dip on the industrial side (for 2014),” LaGrange said. Collections from grocery stores and restaurants showed a slight increase for the year at the end of 2014, LaGrange said. Building materials dropped slightly, and automobile purchases were pretty flat, he said. Convenience collections decreased in 2014, LaGrange said.
In addition to the parish’s 4 percent sales and use tax, LaGrange also included Morgan City’s 0.3 percent road royalty sales and use tax in his analysis to get to the 4.3 percent total tax, he said. The road royalty tax was enacted in 2012. In January, $100,497 was collected for the tax, the report stated.
In January, the parish’s hotel-motel tax accumulated $45,848, a 7 percent decrease from the $48,875 collected in January 2014, LaGrange said.
The following occupational license fees were collected in January 2015: City of Morgan City, $145,496; St. Mary Parish $111,151; City of Patterson, $26,919; City of Franklin $23,961; Town of Berwick, $15,455; and Town of Baldwin $7,556.