Colorado Springs sales tax collections post biggest gain in 4 years
gazette.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gazette.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Colorado Springs sales tax revenue surge continues into 2021
gazette.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gazette.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Surging home construction and online sales combined to push up Colorado Springs sales tax revenue by nearly 10% in December despite tighter COVID-19 pandemic restrictions imposed in late November.
The year-end jump helped revenue from the city’s 2% sales tax finish last year ahead of the 2019 total, even as the state imposed a stay-at-home order in March and April and other pandemic-related limits continued for much of 2020.
Sales tax revenue fell by double-digit percentages in March and April, which prompted Mayor John Suthers to cut more than $20 million from the city’s budget and prepare for further reductions this year.
“When you consider that March and April were so gloomy and we were preparing for cuts, to end the year with an increase is pretty remarkable,” Suthers said Thursday.
Rising apartment rents played a major role in pushing the cost of living in Colorado Springs to tie a 23-year-old record when compared with the national average, according to a new report.
The local cost of living was 104% of the national average in the fourth quarter, up from 103.6% in the third quarter and tying the record reached in the second quarter of 1997, according to the Council for Community and Economic Research. The council normally releases an annual average index early in the following year, rather than a fourth-quarter calculation, so no data is available for the fourth quarter of 2019. The council plans to release its annual average late next month.