Parish sales taxes down $2.3 million through 6 months

Through the first six months of 2016, St. Mary Parish sales and use tax collections are down $2.31 million, or 11.2 percent, from the same period of 2015. Collections also dropped for the 20th consecutive month in June, according to the latest parish sales and use tax report.
A total of $18.27 million was collected during the first six months of the year, a drop from the $20.58 million collected over the first two quarters of 2016.
Hotel sales tax collections totaled $251,984 through June, a 23 percent decline from the $327,244 collected over the same period of 2015.
Parish sales tax revenues have been down from the same month of the prior year for 20 straight months since November 2014. Officials have attributed the declining collections to the economic downturn due to low oil prices.
Second-quarter collections totaled $8.82 million, down 9.3 percent from the $9.72 million collected in 2015’s second quarter. Collections from audits in the 2016 second quarter came in at $78,410 compared to the $184,965 collected from audits in the 2015 second quarter.
Parish officials collected a second quarter total of $124,494 in hotel sales taxes, a 32.1 percent drop from the $183,287 collected during the second quarter of 2015.
June collections, however, fared better than the quarter as a whole. Officials received $2.81 million in June collections, a decrease of 5 percent compared to the $2.96 million collected in June 2015.
Of June’s collections, $57,769 was collected as a result of financial audits, while $19,043 was collected from audits in June 2015. June hotel taxes brought in $41,985, a 26.1 percent drop from the $56,806 collected in June 2015.
Morgan City’s road royalty sales tax brought in $62,581 in June, bringing the six-month total to $475,406.
May’s collections showed a steeper drop than June, which totaled $2.64 million, down 16.2 percent from the May 2015 collections of $3.15 million. April’s collections brought in $3.37 million in April, down 6.9 percent from the $3.62 million collected in April 2015.
The following occupational licenses were filed in June: city of Morgan City, $1,660; city of Patterson, $1,028; city of Franklin, $623; St. Mary Parish, $431; town of Baldwin, $213; and town of Berwick, $136.