The Mitchell City Council heard some good news regarding 2021 sales tax collections at Monday’s meeting. City Administrator Stephanie Ellwein says 1st and 2nd penny sales tax collections are up 9.7 percent from last year. 3rd penny sales tax collections are up 23 percent from last year. She says comparing numbers to pre-COVID levels, 1st and 2nd penny collections are up 10.1 percent from 2019, while 3rd penny sale tax collections are up 12 percent. Ellwein says the remote seller sales tax, also known as the internet sales tax, is averaging around $60,000 per month. If trends continue, the city should bring in around $700,000 from internet sales tax this year.
She says the numbers are significant. “If you look at our third quarter, and this is just one of the two pennies, but third quarter collections are the highest we’ve had,” Ellwein said. The sales for July, August, and September collections occurred six weeks prior. She added that “you can see second quarter, we were still really high. It’s the highest quarter we’ve had for that as well.”
The update was given as part of the consent agenda at Monday night’s Mitchell City Council meeting.