The historic flood continues to impact vehicle and sales tax collections in Baton Rouge and in the parish, with combined collections rising nearly 9% in March, new data from the city-parish’s finance department show.
“Year-to-date collections reflect a 10.06 percent increase, or $4,552,390. We continue to see increases from vehicle sales and building construction as a result of the 2016 flood,” the department notes, adding that “the manufacturing and non-flood-related retail sectors were down from the prior year.”
The purchase of new cars and trucks once again drove up overall tax collections in the city of Baton Rouge and in the parish, as both areas collected roughly 16.8% more from the sale of vehicles in March.
The finance department says the city and parish combined collected $1.6 million in vehicle taxes, up from $1.4 million in March 2016. Both areas also individually had double-digit increases in vehicle tax collections.
Baton Rouge’s vehicle sales tax collections surged as high as 22.8% to $853,617 from $695,320 in March 2016. The parish saw an increase of 11.14% from $729,349 in March 2016 to $810,570 this year.
Sales tax collections in both the city and parish were likewise impacted. Combined collections rose about 8% year over year, the data show. Individually, Baton Rouge collected $9.2 million in sales taxes in March, up $685,015 from one year ago. Parish sales tax collections increased to $7 million from roughly $6.5 million for the comparable month one year ago.
