Taxable sales up nearly 10% in Carson City

Carson City recorded a solid 9.6 percent increase in taxable sales for July but most of it didn’t come from the usual suspects.

The capital’s largest tax generators are auto sales and General Merchandise stores. But those two categories saw just 6.4 percent and 3.4 percent increases respectively.

They are still the city’s largest tax generators, however with auto sales at $25.3 million and General Merchandise Stores at $12.1 million

Building Material sales, however, came through with an 18 percent increase compared to July of 2015, a total of $11.66 million in sales.

The next largest taxable sales generator, Food Services and Drinking Places, was up by 6.4 percent to a hair more than $9 million.

After that, there were significant increases in a variety of smaller categories. The largest dollar amounts include Rental and Leasing Services, which nearly doubled in sales this July to $3.1 million. Nonstore Retailers saw a 20 percent jump to $1.3 million and Furniture Stores sold 37 percent more for a total of $1.2 million.

Likewise, Douglas County had a solid month with an 8.7 percent increase overall to $62.5 million. That was driven by the 18.7 percent increase in Douglas’s largest tax generator, Food Services and Drinking Places — the casinos at South Shore — that raked in $18.8 million over the month. Douglas also had a solid month in Building Material sales (up 5.7 percent to $3 million) and General Merchandise Stores (up 4.9 percent to $8.4 million).

Lyon County increased taxable sales by 15.5 percent in July to $37.68 million. A 38.9 percent increase in auto sales to $5.2 million certainly didn’t hurt. Nor did the 7.2 percent increase in General Merchandise sales ($3.3 million) or the 10.8 percent increase in Building Material sales ($3.8 million).

Churchill County had a bad month — down 20 percent from a year ago.

There were a variety of weak spots for Churchill in the July report, one of the largest in the Repair and Maintenance category where sales fell from $3.5 million to $928,755.

Broadcasting went from $83,560 a year ago to a negative $716,153 this July. In addition, auto sales were off 12 percent to $3.6 million.

Washoe County reported $663.1 million in taxable sales, a 7.9 percent increase over a year ago. Auto Sales increased by 16.2 percent to $102 million in Washoe while wholesales of durable goods were up 16.1 percent to $53.3 million. Food Services and Drinking Places reported a 5 percent increase to $101.6 million.

In Clark County, total taxable sales were up just 1.6 percent, a total of $3.26 billion.

Statewide, total taxable sales were up 3 percent to $4.46 billion.