May’s tax trend a good one

By Barry Porterfield
Staff Writer

May 30, 2008 10:03 pm

— The numbers are in as Pauls Valley has now seen a jump in sales tax revenues for three straight months and six consecutive months of May dating back to 2003.
As this particular month of May is quickly coming to a close the distribution of tax dollars from the Oklahoma Tax Commission shows Pauls Valley received about $372,600 for the month.
That total gave PV a gain of nearly $42,000 or 12.6 percent over May 2006, in addition to an increase of almost $16,300 over the local receipts this past month.
For Pauls Valley’s use taxes it was a slight drop from this time last year — $1,441 — after a distribution of $15,170.
The largest percentage gain in Garvin County went to Elmore City.
An increase of about $3,900 or 23.3 percent went to Elmore City after it received a revenue total of $20,500.
Elmore’s use taxes were also up by $98.85 thanks to a total of $1,551 in May.
A solid gain was seen in Stratford after a distribution of almost $30,700 — an increase of $1,136 or 3.8 percent.
The two other area towns seeing an increase were Paoli and Wynnewood.
Paoli’s sales taxes inched up by $171.95, a hike of 5.3 percent, after it received a total of $3,409. No use taxes in Paoli were reported for the month.
Showing a slight gain over last year was Wynnewood as a monthly distribution of almost $48,000 brought an increase of $240.
Use taxes were down in Wynnewood by $1,613 after a disbursement of $1,575.
On the down side of the ledger were Maysville and Lindsay.
For Maysville a disbursement of $21,600 resulted in a drop of $3,842 or 15 percent.
In Lindsay revenues came in at nearly $179,000 — a drop of $6,705 or 3.6 percent.
Lindsay’s use taxes were also down as a total of $6,100 gave it a decrease of $10,360.
May was also Garvin County’s ninth month of receiving the funds from a half-cent county tax approved by voters in February 2007.
The county tax revenues added up to $115,116 while another $5,000 came in the form of use taxes.
The disbursement of city sales tax collections returned to 504 cities and towns in Oklahoma totaled $110 million and showed an increase of over $2.3 million from the amount distributed to 500 communities in May 2007.
The use tax distribution of $8.1 million went to 334 cities.
In county returns, a total of 73 Oklahoma counties shared in a sales tax disbursement of more than $22.6 million. A use tax total of $1.7 million went to 59 counties.