DAVID KAPITAN

sports@vanzandtnews.com The Texas State Comptroller’s Office delivered its first sales tax revenue collection report of the year Jan. 11, indicating that five out of seven local cities had shown gains when comparing January 2023 totals against those posted during the same calendar month the previous year.

The City of Edom enjoyed the best month of any county city in terms of percentage change, seeing collections climb 28.44 percent from $1,963.35 in January 2022 up to $2,521.77 in January 2023.

Wills Point opened the new year with a county-best $19,855.88 increase in sales tax revenue collections when com- paring against the $142,501.20 payment the city received in January 2022.

Canton nearly equaled the City of Wills Point’s dollar change total for the month as collections grew $18,411.44 when comparing against the same calendar month from the previous year.

Fruitvale also enjoyed a strong start to 2023 as collections grew 11.58 percent overall, from $5,797.27 in January 2022 up to $6,468.52 in January 2023.

The City of Van wrapped up the list of local gainers as collections narrowly increased .22 percent, from $91,770.72 in January 2022 up to $91,971.62. Edgewood saw the biggest drop in terms of both negative percentage change and negative dollar change, receiving a payment of $34,961.28 from the comptroller’s office. That total was $3,327.33 or 8.69 percent less than the $38,288.61 payment the city received at the same time last year.

Grand Saline also found itself on the wrong side of the ledger for the month, seeing sales tax revenue collection totals dip a modest 2.92 percent from $55,102 down to $53,492.52.

Combined, Canton, Edgewood, Edom, Fruitvale, Grand Saline and Wills Point began 2023 with collections increasing 4.71 percent or $34,761.08 when comparing against reported sales tax revenue collection totals from January 2022.

In announcing the news, Texas State Comptroller Glenn Hegar stated this his office would be sending, “cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose districts $1.07 billion in local sales tax allocations for January, 7.6 percent more than in January 2022. These allocations are based on sales made in November by businesses that report tax monthly.”