Oil price hikes have no impact yet on sales taxes

May continued a 19-month streak of declining St. Mary Parish sales tax collections, even though oil prices climbed to the highest they’ve been in almost a year.
Sales and use tax collections totaled $2.64 million in May, down about 16.2 percent from May 2015 collections of $3.15 million. Since November 2014, parish sales tax collections have been lower than the same month of the prior year during the region’s economic downturn caused by a drop in oil prices.
Sales and Use Tax Director Jeff LaGrange said in an email he’s hearing more talk of possible layoffs even though the price per barrel of oil is up a bit.
“I don’t think we have hit the bottom yet,” LaGrange said.
USA Today reported that oil prices were around $51 per barrel Wednesday morning for the first time since July 2015.
Parish Economic Development Director Frank Fink said in April that he expects the area’s economic climate will begin to gradually improve with the possibility of more substantial improvement by the summer of 2017.
The parish’s hotel occupancy sales tax brought in $42,220 in May, a drop of over 40 percent from the May 2015 collections of $71,283.
However, the hotel tax was so high in May 2015 due to a large delinquent collection, LaGrange said. So May’s hotel collections are actually close to being on par with the rest of 2016’s collections, he said.
Morgan City’s 0.3 percent sales tax for roads accumulated $61,635, bringing the year-to-date total collected to $404,923.
Parish officials have collected $15.46 million year-to-date, a decrease of 12.3 percent from the $17.62 million collected in the first five months of 2015.
Sales and use tax collections totaled $3.37 million in April, down 6.9 percent from the $3.62 million collected in April 2015.
First quarter collections were down 13 percent compared to the $10.86 million collected in 2015’s first quarter.
In March, collections totaled $2.75 million, a 15.2 percent drop from the $3.25 million collected in March 2015.
In February, parish sales tax collections totaled $2.48 million, down 13.4 percent from the $2.87 million collected in February 2015.
In January, the parish collected a total of $4.21 million in sales and use taxes during January, an 11.2 percent decrease from the $4.75 million collected in January 2015.
The following occupational licenses were issued in May: St. Mary Parish, $26,123; city of Franklin, $10,713; city of Morgan City, $10,205; city of Patterson, $4,749; town of Baldwin, $1,251; and town of Berwick, $1,231.