Carson City’s taxable sales rise 15% in October

October’s taxable sales rose 15.2 percent in Carson City.

That’s three times the 5.2 percent statewide increase to $4.67 billion.

But Carson wasn’t the area with the biggest increases over the same month of 2016. Those honors go to Churchill County, where taxable sales were up 200.8 percent, and Storey, where the increase was 137.2 percent.

In the capital, the increase was driven by a 27.2 percent increase in car sales — a total of $31.9 million for the month. Building materials sales were also strong, up 21 percent to $11.85 million while Food Services and Drinking Places posted a 6.5 percent increase to just more than $9 million in sales.

Taxable sales in Carson City totaled $96.1 million for the month.

In Churchill County, the story was the Utilities category that went from a negative $5.8 million in October 2016 to a plus $9.8 million total this past October and the $15.9 million reported in Machinery Manufacturing — a massive increase from just $269,337 the year before. Those two categories accounted for nearly all of the increase from $16.6 million in October 2016 to $49.89 million this year.

Storey County’s saga was again the boom at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center that increased taxable sales for the month from $39.2 million a year back to just more than $93 million this October.

Professional, Scientific and Technical Services increased near $24 million to $37 million and the Wholesale Durable Goods category rose $33.3 million to $39 million. Machinery Manufacturing was up 757 percent to $4.7 million and the Non-Store Retail category by 327 percent to $1.69 million.

Most of the mining counties saw double-digit increases. White Pine was up 18.1 percent to $21.8 million, Humboldt up 16 percent to $43.69 million and Eureka up 13.1 percent to $25.3 million.

While their increases were more modest in terms of percent, the state’s largest counties were up as well. Washoe posted a 6.5 percent increase to $671.7 million and Clark a 2.5 percent rise to $3.36 billion.

Lyon County was also up 5.1 percent to $36.49 million in October.

In all, just five of Nevada’s 17 counties were down in taxable sales. Worst off was Lincoln County which saw total monthly sales fall 20 percent to $2.4 million. But Douglas was also down, albeit just 1.6 percent to $60.4 million. Elko, Esmeralda and Pershing were also down — Pershing by 18 percent.