Posted on 10/10/2016 7:57:27 PM PDT by Lorianne
Retail sales in Texas boomed for five years straight, from March 2010, their low point during the Great Recession. Sales tax collections jumped 46% from the first half of 2010 through the first half of 2015 – dizzying growth for a mature market! Given the size of the Texas economy, it helped prop up US retail sales. But by May 2015, 10 months into the oil bust, things began to sag.
Sales tax collections in September for sales that occurred in August dropped 3.5% year-over-year, according to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. And in August, sales tax collections had dropped 3.0% from two years earlier. This was only the second time since the depth of the Financial Crisis that collections were lower than two years earlier, the first time having been in June!
Year-to-date, sales tax collections fell 2.5% to $21.4 billion, and were practically flat with collections two years ago. On a per-capita basis, given the growth of the Texas population (up 8% since 2010), it looks even worse.
Sales tax collections aren’t an ideal gauge. Many food products are exempt. Taxes on motor vehicle sales and rentals are not included in this tally but are reported separately. The data is not seasonally adjusted, so it can only be compared to the same months in prior years. But it’s an unvarnished approximation of the movements of retail sales.
This chart by “David in Texas,” who also researched the sales tax collection data, shows how the boom since the Great Recession began to sag last year. I circled the two months when collections declined from two years ago. Note that sales tax collections lag sales by one month. So collections reported in September were for sales in August (click chart to enlarge):
(Excerpt) Read more at wolfstreet.com ...
Just imagine how much better it could have done with liberals in charge!
Guess what ya’ll, the traffic is awful!
Amen to that!
You could have fooled me. I don’t see too many stores or restaurants closing their doors yet. New construction everywhere.
So they went up by 46% in five years then contracted 2.5% from their peak, and that is “the wheels falling off”? Who writes this kind of crap.
WOO HOO! How long have you been back?
Dreadful horrible awful. I keep wondering where the hell it all comes from and goes?!
Several months now. I’m hurt you did not notice!
This is why, when I decided to move back to my home state after a 16-year vacation in California, I chose Dallas instead of my native Houston. The Houston I knew no longer exists.
I’m a little older and a little slower. :)
Usually the local/state governments that used the high figures in budget projections...They’ve already spent revenues they haven’t yet collected.
Less oil money.
Truck traffic should be heavy but it is noticeably thin in Houston.
I know this is considered heresy at FR, but you can learn a great deal by reading the entire article.
The cited numbers are for the entire state of Texas.
The statistics for Houston are much worse, although they aren't solely responsible for dragging down Texas.
Believe me, the restaurants are hurting and there are thousands of engineers out of work.
Cousins properties just dumped their real estate in Houston through a merger and spin off maneuver.
Ha! me and you both
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