It's All How You Look At It
Last year the Missouri Department of Revenue instituted a new sales tax reporting system. The system is much easier to use and makes it faster to report more detailed information. However, as with any new system, there are quirks and bugs that need to be worked out.
Which brings me to the January sales tax report.
If you'll recall from the news and social media postings, there was a December "supplemental" distribution of sales and use tax monies. Some earlier months' receipts were not included during the normal reporting periods in the transition to the new system and the DOR distributed these amounts later in December instead of waiting until January. The January report (which is money collected in December and distributed in January) includes the Santa's Surprise Distribution and money collected during the rest of the month. However, the money distributed in January does not include supplemental distribution, and thus the report differs from what actually was deposited in the County's bank account.
To the best of my knowledge, this happened state-wide to every jurisdiction.
The money collected by the DOR in December was $912,439.52, an increase over January 2017. Since part of that money was already distributed in December, the money deposited by the DOR this month was $723,960.67, over 18% less than last year. Sales tax is up but it was paid out differently. Visually, think it this way:
The full report will be available at the end of the month. Thanks for reading.
