Clark County taxable sales down 21 percent from last year
The newest numbers from the state Department of Taxation show no letup in an unrelenting recession that’s gripped Nevada for nearly two years.
Nevada’s taxable sales — purchases of tangible goods by consumers and businesses in the Silver State — plummeted 21.1 percent statewide and 21.9 percent in Clark County year-over-year in May, the Department of Taxation said.
The hardest-hit sectors include construction, wholesale durable goods, dealers of cars and car parts, furniture retailers and sellers of appliances and electronics.
Some categories improved their sales. Chemical manufacturers, utilities, sightseeing tours, the performing arts and spectator sports all showed gains in sales from May to May.
Those bright spots weren’t enough to lift overall taxable sales, which posted their seventh straight month of double-digit declines in year-over-year figures.
Experts blamed the extended slump on several factors.
With statewide unemployment nearly doubling to 12 percent from a year ago, the state’s consumers simply can’t spend the way they did in 2008, said Brian Gordon, a principal in local research firm Applied Analysis. Plus, housing values continue to fall and consumer confidence rests near all-time lows, Gordon added.
Throw in a skyrocketing personal savings rate, and the portion of the economic pie devoted to discretionary spending has contracted considerably, said Keith Schwer, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
The slump has fiscal implications for the state.
Collections from taxable sales help finance public services such as schools and prisons. And those collections fell 19.3 percent year-over-year in May, to $240.3 million. The general fund portion of sales-and-use tax collections for the first 11 months of fiscal 2009 came in 0.95 percent, or $8.1 million, below projections from the Economic Forum, a nonpartisan group that forecasts future tax revenue for state-budgeting purposes.
Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.
