By Rupert Howell

Latest sales tax figures from the State Tax Commission revealed that the City of Batesville’s sales increased nine percent during November over the prior year with the City receiving $288,543 as its share of the seven percent sales tax.

That number added with the other months since the state’s fiscal year began July 1 puts Batesville within three percent of the amount received compared to last year during the same period. Since July Batesville has received $1,715,380 as its 18 percent share of the seven cent sales tax.

Those figures look positive when compared to the state’s 2.5 percent decrease for the month and the states’s seven percent decrease for the fiscal year.

State Tax Commission figures also reveal that total retail sales for Panola County through October from July 1 increased by 13.15% or $18,462,514 over last year’s $140,370,159 in sales during the same time.

Batesville’s Tourism and Development Tax took a sharp dive dropping 17 percent from the unusual and unexplainable high figure collected during last December. The Tourism and Development Tax figures are a month more current than the sales tax figures.

The $75,577 collected during December from the three percent Tourism and Development Tax is virtually the same amount collected during the previous month as well as being in line with the amount collected in December 2007 and 2008.

Other Panola municipalities received sales tax income in the amount of and percentage of increase or decrease for the month of November as follows: Como,$13,899, -10; Courtland, $1,294, -17; Crenshaw, $3,786, 12; Crowder, $1,812, 34; Pope, $2,206, 22; Sardis, $27,133, unchanged.

Other nearby municipalities received sales tax revenue in the amount of and percentage of increase and decrease as follows: Charleston, $26,109, unchanged; Clarksdale, $202,122, +4; Grenada, $$296,807, -3; Lambert, $2,697, -2; Marks, $19,488, +5; Oakland, $3,883, -2; Oxford, $522,206, +8; Senatobia, $147,405, -10; Sledge, $1,332, +3 and Water Valley, $37,874, +4.