California Sales Tax Receipts Down Again in January
This is from the January California Controller's report.
January Retail Sales and Use Tax revenue was $991.4 M in Jan 08 vs $1,097.7M in Jan 07, down 9.7% year-over-year.
The California sales tax rate is 7.25%, so a drop of $106 M in revenue means that actual retail sales were $1.47 billion lower than the previous year.
I think that this is especially bearish for retailers because they are slashing margins just to get these declining sales volumes.
Personal Income Tax revenue in January was up an anemic 2.2% year-over-year.
See my prior posts on this subject: Florida Sales Tax Revenue Weak in November and Weak October Retail Sales in California.
disclosure: short TIF, CROX, M
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3 comments:
The same thing happened in Georgia, with year over year January sales tax receipts down 7%, ish, versus Jan 2006. This weakness has been evident since the late Fall.
The "core" California sales tax rate is 7.25% but nearly all localities tack on extras. As much as another 1.25%.
I have a new post up dissecting today's earning's report from Newcastle (NCT), a stock that was discussed on this blog a short candidate last June.
http://gweston.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/newcastle_q4/
Single worst stat: the stock's price is $11 right now, but book value fell more than $7 per share just in Q4 2007, from $12.66 to $5.59.
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