By Rupert Howell

Sales tax collections for April increased in Batesville while apparently decreasing statewide according to recently released figures of the Mississippi Department of Revenue.

(Sales tax disbursements are issued to each municipality following collections and submission to the State Tax Commission and amount to approximately 18.5 percent of the total  seven percent collected within the municipality for the month reported.)

Those disbursements are listed and can be compared to the previous year’s disbursement as a measuring stick to indicate if the municipality’s economy has increased or decreased.)

Batesville’s disbursement paid in June for taxes collected in April totaled $336,011, a four percent increase over April of 2013. Since July 1, 2013 when the state’s fiscal year began, Batesville has received $3,626,813 representing two percent more than was received the previous fiscal year at that point.

An increase for Batesville’s Tourism and Economic Development Tax was also recorded for the month of May. That tax is a three percent tax on food and lodging and amounted to $99,832, a two percent increase over May 2013. Year-to-date collections total $975,406, also an approximate two percent increase over the previous fiscal year.

The City of Sardis also collects a similar tax on food and lodging. That figure amount to $8,258 for the month of May down five percent from May 2013. Sardis has received $85,496 in collections for the food and lodging tax so far this fiscal year.

Other Panola County municipalities received the following disbursements as their share of sales tax collected during April with amount of increase or decrease as follows: Como, $11,844, -37; Courtland, $1,118, unchanged; Crenshaw, $4,413, -8; Crowder, $1,559, +9; Pope, $2,495, +4 and Sardis, $25,978, -8.

Other nearby municipalities received the following amounts with percentage of change from April 2013 as follows: Charleston, $22,170, -23; Clarksdale, $232, 192, -5; Grenada, $335,245, -5; Hernando, $238,969, +4; Lambert, $1,730, -54; Marks, $19,705, +4; Oakland, $5,970, unchanged; Oxford, $641,972, +4; Senatobia, $182,539, +10 and Water Valley, $42,191, +1.

The state disbursed a total of $33,706,228 back to municipalities, a two percent decrease over the amount disbursed during the same time period last year.