Putnam April Sales Tax Revenue Dropped 9%

Putnam County sales tax revenue dropped some 9.3 percent in April compared to last year.

“(It’s) actually better than I thought,” Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter said. “I thought sales tax would be down more. I was guessing we’d be down in the 15 to 20 percent range.”

The May report covers sales tax collections for April, when the majority of COVID-19 closures happened.

Almost all of the reduction came in Cookeville where total collections dropped from $2.91 million in April, 2019 to $2.49 million in April, 2020. That’s nearly a 14.5 percent drop from 2019.

In the county outside the four municipalities, April sales tax revenues increased from $198,419 to $254,493 year over year. Porter said that comes from internet sales tax revenue that now goes to the specific government entity. The legislature changed the law requiring internet companies to specify the municipality. Previously, for example, Cookeville received all revenue for zip code 38501.

Collections in Baxter held steady while Monterey sales tax revenue jumped some 12 percent. Algood revenues fell 3.5 percent to $300,333.

Though April’s numbers are expected to be the worst because of the shutdown, Porter said he expect sales revenues to be down, over last year, going forward.

“I think we’ll still see decreases from last year because we set a record last year on sales tax,” Porter said. “I think they’ll be some decreases, hopefully small ones as we go through.”

According to data released by the Tennessee Department of Revenue, April sales tax collections for all five government entities totaled $3,196,594. That’s down from $3,563,493 in April, 2019.

Sales tax revenue makes up the majority of revenue for local municipalities. Porter said he believes the budget expectation should remain lower revenues for the next several months.