Not only does high gas prices effect peoples driving habits. . . but so does higher sales taxes effect peoples spending to.
Wicomico County Sales Tax Collection Totals
FY 2003 (08/02 - 07/03) $55,487,221
FY 2004 (08/03 - 07/04) $60,701,335
FY 2005 (08/04 - 07/05) $68,168,174
FY 2006 (08/05 - 07/06) $76,160,447
FY 2007 (08/06 - 07/07) $76,254,189
FY 2008 (08/07 - 07/08) $75,832,624 *
*Amount reflects 20% increase in sales tax rate from 5% to 6%
Theoretically speaking, you should reduce FY 2008 sales tax collection totals- $75,892,624 - by a factor of .8333 - (5% divided by 6% - sales tax rate increase) - to reflect the true decrease in sales transactions for Wicomico County. Thus the true indicator in sales tax collections for Wicomico County shows a net collection amount for FY 2008 to be $63,193,853.33 or a decline of $12,698,770.67 in sales tax collections for Wicomico County upon factoring-in the 20% increase in sales tax rate.
Bottom line - the citizens in Wicomico County purchased substantially less during fiscal year 2008 in comparison to previous years.
This is referred to in economic terms as Demand Destruction.
Look out Delaware - here they come.
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
15 comments:
Joe
Your news organization continues to amaze me.
As Arnold Schwarzenegger said to the Predator - 'What In Hell Are You' - and so it goes as this is one super powerful media site.
Great investigative reporting.
We should all go right to Delaware or Virginia to buy our goods and services.
As Reverend Wright would say 'Maryland's Chickens.sssh Are Comin Home to Roost'
I wonder what the decline will be in state income tax revenues for Wicomico.
i dont know about anybody else but i'm on the line so i buy as much as i can in De and will continue to do so unless the price is right in Md. It was stupid and greedy for Md to impose the sales tax hike and were warned not to do it but they did it anyway and now they are whining about the sales being down. Times are tough and people cant afford to pay more. Lower the tax rate back down Md or watch the sales still decline.
No wonder Maryland's population is on the decline.
The legislators are constantly sticking it to the man.
You are missing out on some other economic factors here, like the record high price of gas. All economic theory expects that every other input will remain the same when analyzing effect of changing a single input.
I went from $80/wk in gas to about $40 now. When gas was very high, I had to forgo a lot of things that I would probably purchased otherwise. Figure about $10/mo in state sales tax was lost due to gas prices. And I am not alone...
Car sales have also tanked. Those big ticket items generate more than $1k in tax on the average new car sale. That´s a lot of DVD´s!
You should expect consumption to drop due to the higher taxes, though. If all other things remained the same, roughly 1% of consumption would be eaten away by the extra sales tax due to the finite amount of money available for goods.
7:33
You forget that the gas prices were at a all time high this year also. The taxes were collected on the high gas prices as well.
I sure hope our County Executive has taken preliminary steps to alleviate the increased size and growth of our local government. If he hasn't prepared accordingly, then, he'll have to declare an economic emergency. If he hasn't taken the necessary precautions, then get prepared to have it shoved up your butt yet again.
I'm pretty sure O'Malley, Conway, and Cain have a back-up plan.
Their plan - sponsor legislation to build a wall along the entire Maryland - Delaware corridor and set-up an out-post to try and monitor out-of-state sales.
Keep voting for those Democrats. Soon, we'll all be on welfare.
O'Malley was a horrible Mayor. Why did people think he would be any different as governor?
Get rid of all the bums in office! Elect anyone new!
Beez:
Can you present data for the entire State and selected other counties -- to allow us to guesstimate how much of the reduction is due to flight to Delaware. Apparently, the tax revenue was lower than projected for most other Counties, too.
Mr./Ms. 6:09-
What's the sales tax in Virginia?
Everyone:
Is this the time for the County to build a new library; what about a new Civic Center?
PS:
The state of Maryland is NOT holding a sales tax holiday this year. The Maryland General Assembly did not pass legislation authorizing the program for 2007 or 2008. So, if you live in Maryland, you'll have to take advantage of the sales tax holidays in Washington, DC and Virginia.
In prior years, the Maryland Sales Tax Holiday gave shoppers a 5 percent savings on qualifying clothing and footwear priced at $100 or less. Qualifying apparel included belts, coats, jackets, pants, shoes, socks and sweaters. The sales tax exemption applied to each eligible item, regardless of how many items you purchase at the same time.
For more information, visit the web site for the Comptroller of Maryland
Mardela:
If you think O'Malley was a bad mayor, what about Barrie Tilghman?
Something else Maryland needs to leave alone-the poultry industry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We already have a recession and a bunch of environmental interests in Annapolis want to make things even more difficult for the farmers.If we jeopardize the biggest business on the Shore,which is chicken,we might as well put up the shutters and turn out the lights.The trickle down effect would be enormnous....look at all the secondary beneficiaries of the poultry industry-farmers who grow feed grain,truckers who haul manure,feed,live chickens,finished product and other supplies,contractors who build and repair chickenhouses,farm supply companies,the list goes on and on.Why aren't more people concerned about and speaking out about this?Joe,I would love to see one of the contributors do a story on this.Alot of my friends and neighbors grow birds and the pressure is really on them right now,thanks to big government.
Are you all retarded? Did NONE OF YOU notice a recession and MASSIVE economic downturn?
Consumer spending dropped due to a 1 penny sales tax increase?
SERIOUSLY?!?!
Somebody needs to teach all of you the difference between correlative and causal relationships.
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