Tax revenues double up

By Barry Porterfield
Staff Writer

July 03, 2008 01:59 pm

— By Barry Porterfield
Staff Writer

It was a summertime double-digit move when it came to June’s sales tax revenues for most communities in Garvin County.
The distribution of tax dollars from the Oklahoma Tax Commission that actually reflects business in April resulted in healthy gains for six of the seven regional cities with four of those in the two-digit category.
Pauls Valley had the biggest numbers on the plus-side with a gain over totals in June 2007 that fell only a few dollars short of $75,000.
The total disbursement of $380,008 results in an increase of 24.5 percent over local receipts from last year.
In the category of use tax revenues PV had none reported for the month.
The highest percentage gain went to Wynnewood after it received nearly $56,500 in revenues, which comes to a gain of $13,262 or 30.6 percent.
Use taxes were also up in Wynnewood by $1,615 after a disbursement of $3,239.
Both Stratford and Maysville also received double-digit gains.
Stratford repeated its high numbers from May with a similar disbursement of $30,810 in June — an increase of $5,456 or 21.5 percent.
For Maysville a disbursement of $23,325 resulted in a revenue jump of $2,605 or 12.5 percent.
A solid month of June was also seen in Lindsay, specifically an increase of $14,815 or 7.8 percent. The total tax distribution was slightly more than $203,500.
Lindsay’s use tax revenues were nearly identical to a year earlier thanks to a total distribution for the month of $10,376.
With a revenue total of nearly $20,500 for the month, Elmore City saw a gain of $695 or 3.5 percent over last year’s numbers.
Elmore’s use taxes were up by even more — $2,315 — after it received $2,884 in June.
Paoli’s sales tax distribution was the only one in the county to see falling numbers compared to those at the same time the previous year.
The total of $3,069 gave Paoli a decrease of $914 or 22.9 percent. No use taxes in the northern Garvin County town were reported for the month.
June was also the county’s 10th month of receiving the funds from a half-cent county tax approved by voters in February 2007.
The county tax revenues added up to $126,430 while another $11,471 came in the form of use taxes.
The disbursement of city sales tax collections returned to 504 cities and towns in Oklahoma totaled $111 million and showed an increase of over $9.6 million from the amount distributed to 501 communities in June 2007.
The use tax distribution of $7.4 million went to 341 cities.
In county returns, a total of 73 Oklahoma counties shared in a sales tax disbursement of more than $22.8 million. A use tax total of $1.8 million went to 61 counties.