DALLAS — Texas sales tax revenue increased to $2.3 billion in January, up 8.3% from January 2013, according to state comptroller Susan Combs.
The latest report represents the 46th consecutive month of increases, Combs said.
"Increases were seen across all major sectors of the Texas economy," Combs said. "This indicates continued expansion in both consumer and business spending, and brings the growth in fiscal year-to-date collections to 4.6% compared with the previous year."
January revenues rose slightly over the $2.25 billion of December revenues but fell short of the record $2.41 billion reported for November 2013.
January is the fifth month of Texas' fiscal year, which begins Sept. 1 and ends Aug. 31.
Combs will send cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose taxing districts their February local sales tax allocations totaling $802.1 million, up 8.2% compared to February 2013.
Special purpose taxing districts recorded the largest increase among the sectors, which includes cities, counties and transit systems. The special districts will receive $47 million of the January collections, a 25.2% increase over the same month in 2012.
Houston, the state's largest city, will see its share of the sales tax revenue rise 9% to $67 million. San Antonio's sales tax revenue shot up nearly 23% to $32.3 million, while Dallas' rose 5.4% to $26.4 million. Austin's revenue increased 5.5% to $18.5 million, while Fort Worth's increased 7.4% to $13.4 million.
Job growth, sales tax collections and building permits all indicate that the Texas economy continues to outpace the national economy, Combs said in a separate report on Feb. 14.
Over the past year, Texas added jobs in all of the 11 major industries, including professional and business services, trade, transportation and utilities, leisure and hospitality, education and health services, construction, mining and logging, government, financial activities, information, other services, and manufacturing, she said.
Pre-recession Texas employment peaked at 10,635,700 in August 2008, a level that was surpassed in September 2011, she noted. By December 2013 Texas added an additional 641,400 jobs. In the U.S. as a whole, only 87% of recession-hit jobs were recovered by December 2013.
