Overton To Conduct Sales Tax Audit On County Businesses

Overton County will move forward with conducting a sales tax audit.

County Executive Steven Barlow said a company will come in a look at all business in the county. He said they will look at businesses that are paying sales tax, that are not paying sales tax, and how to make sure everyone is contributing.

“There’s a lot of new businesses that are coming in, going out, coming in, going out, so we’re just making sure that everything up to date and everything fair across the board to everybody,” Barlow said. “So a sales tax audit, it just kind of cleans the report up.”

Barlow said the 50-page report will sometimes contain just about two pages of high-paying sales tax. He said the rest of the report has businesses with paying a low amount. Barlow said that tipped him off that the county’s sales tax payments need to be examined.

Barlow said sales tax is one of the main sources of revenue for the county. He said that is why it is crucial to make sure the county is collecting the right amount of sales tax revenue from its businesses.

“On the sales, tax the county actually receives the 25 percent and the rest of it goes towards the schools and the solid waste so that 25 percent, we need that to help fund the county,” Barlow said. “So we’re trying to look for everything we can get to not raise property taxes. Because property tax is the main way that we pay our bills but if we can get it from sales tax and not have to raise anything, then that’s what we’re going to do.”