New Sales Tax Numbers Show Texans Were Still Spending in March

All that toilet paper buying may have had an impact on state sales taxes last month. According to the latest report from the state comptroller’s office, March sales tax revenue totaled $2.69 billion, a 2.9 percent increase from a year ago. The growth is being attributed to increased retail sales.

 “While some businesses may have begun to experience slowing traffic in late February, formal social distancing measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic were not adopted until well into March, and the impact of those measures would not be reflected in this month’s sales tax collections based on February sales,” said Texas State Comptroller Glenn Hegar.

“We expect that future sales tax revenue will be drastically affected because much of the economy has been shut down to combat the coronavirus pandemic and because of the negative impact of a global oil price war.”

Sales tax is the largest source of state funding for the state budget, accounting for 57 percent of all tax collections.

Motor fuel taxes were up 2.6 percent last month, and oil production taxes jumped 10.5 percent. Motor vehicle sales and rental taxes and natural gas production taxes were both down from the same period a year ago.