By Rupert Howell
Sales continued to drop in Batesville through the month of September according to figures from the Mississippi State Tax Commission.

The most current figures show the City of Batesville received seven percent less in sales tax revenue than from the corresponding month a year earlier.

Batesville received $277,945 as its share of the seven percent sales tax collected in September, paid to the state in October and returned to the City in November.

Municipalities receive approximately 18 percent of the seven cent sales tax.

That number was two percent less than the amount collected the previous month and mirrors the seven percent state-wide decrease in sales reported by the State Tax Commission.

The City of Batesville’s Tourism and Economic Development Tax produced $73,766 during the month of October, virtually unchanged from October of the previous year. That tax is a three percent charge on food and lodging, and doesn’t figure into the sales tax totals.

Since July, the City of Batesville has received $1,155,442 from sales tax revenues which is six percent less than that received for the same period last year. State wide collections are down seven percent.

Other Panola County municipalities received the following amounts as their share of sales tax collections representing September sales and the increase or decrease from the corresponding month last year as follows: Como, $19,942, +1; Courtland, $1,315, -15; Crenshaw, $3,194, -14; Crowder, $1,548, +14; Pope, $2,103, -8; Sardis, $24,831, +1.5.

Other nearby municipalities received the following amounts and percentage of increase and decrease from last year as: Charleston, $27,487, unchanged; Clarksdale, $204,873, -7; Grenada, $285,770, -6; Lambert, $2,748, -3; Marks, $19,526, -10; Oakland, $3,960, -4; Oxford, $501,549, -4; Senatobia, $139,598, -14; Sledge, $1,639, -9 and Water Valley, $40,001, -2.