For the first time in nearly two years, taxable sales in Tennessee last month rose above the year-ago level as the state’s economy showed signs of new growth this spring, the Tennessee Department of Revenue reported today.
Tennessee revenue collections last month were up 2.23 percent over April 2009, boosting collections to more than $1.2 billion, or $43.4 million more than the state budgeted for the month.
“April is the first positive sales tax growth month in almost two years – since May of 2008,” Tennessee Finance and Administration Commissioner Dave Goetz Goetz said. “Sales tax collections started their downward spiral starting in January of that year and, beginning with the month of June, recorded an unprecedented 22 consecutive months of negative collections.”
Despite the monthly gain in April, however, sales tax collections for the first nine months of the current fiscal year were still 4.1 percent below the year-ago level, Mr. Goetz said.