Wood County sales tax receipts continue to lag just slightly behind last year’s record pace.

For the first nine months of the calendar year, the six cities plus the county have booked tax income of $7,050,112 compared to $7,161,960 at this time last year.

Since these government entities are on an Oct. 1 fiscal year, the September rebates mark the final ones for their budget year.

Yantis remains well ahead of last year while Alba is up slightly and Mineola is fractionally behind. The other three cities range from 3.3% to 4.45% behind 2023, and the county is 1.45% behind.

Cities collect a 1.5% tax on retail sales while the county collects a half-percent. When combined with the state’s 6.25% tax, retail sales are taxed at 8.25% inside cities.

The merchants report their taxes collected to the state on a monthly basis, which then rebates the cities and counties their shares.

The September report is primarily for taxes collected by merchants in July and reported to the state in August.

Those monthly rebates totaled $814,467 in August, which was actually a very slight gain from a year ago when collections were $814,274.

The increase was aided by a 14.15% increase for the city of Mineola, representing a gain of more than $35,000.

The county’s income was also up more than $10,000 or 4.18%, which helped to offset a drop of almost $40,000 for the city of Winnsboro and $6,400 by the city of Hawkins.

The city of Alba has received sales tax income of $273,766 so far this year for a gain of 0.8% over last year. The monthly rebate of $30,241 is a 1.24% gain.

Hawkins saw its rebate in September decline by 13.3% to $41,756. For the year the city is 3.3% behind 2023 with collections of $375,709.

Mineola’s strong September rebate came in at $272,392 and brought the yearly total to $2,301,401, which is $1,128 less than a year ago.

Quitman saw a slight increase of 1% to $77,580 for the month. For the year the city remains 4.45% behind 2023 with income of $708,006.

The dip of 23.6% for Winnsboro reversed a recent trend, netting $128,801. For the year the city is 4.13% behind 2023 at $1,070,887.

Yantis’s September rebate dropped 1.12% to $9,871, but the city remains more than 12% ahead of last year with receipts totaling $109,661.

Combined, the six cities have received $4,839,432 so far this year compared to $4,918,575 a year ago.

Wood County received $257,824 in September to bring the yearly total to $2,210,680.