CHANGE IN REPORTING OF QUARTERLY SALES TAX DATA,
REQUEST FROM MR. JIM LISSNER

 

RECOMMENDATION:

It is recommended that the City Council direct staff to continue receiving existing quarterly sales tax reports.

BACKGROUND :

At the City Council meeting of September 14, 1999, Mr. Jim Lissner requested changes to the sales tax reports provided quarterly from Hinderliter de Llamas and Associates (HdL). The City Council directed staff to return with a proposal from the consultant.

ANALYSIS :

Request to Provide Sales Tax Breakdown by Business Category Within Each Geographic Area

The City currently receives a summarized report by geographic area (see Attachment A), which is releasable to the public. In addition, staff receives reports with detailed information for each business within each geographic area by business category, which is not released to the public.

HdL does not recommend that the smaller geographic areas, as requested by Mr. Lissner, be used due to the small size of the database (see attached letter from HdL). Much of the information would likely be deemed confidential because there will be so few businesses in the geographic area if it is further broken down by business category. Also, in very small groupings, the information will be skewed or difficult to compare to previous periods because of late payments, double payments and other accounting aberrations. The cost for making this change would be a one-time programming fee of $300.

New Geographic Area for Plaza, Change Title of "Downtown" Geo to "Downtown, Including Plaza"

This change can be made if the Council believes the information is valuable. Staff is satisfied with the geo areas currently used. Again, we are talking about a very small area.

Add a New Business Category "Eating and Drinking Places with Liquor", Change Current "Eating and Drinking Places" to Eating and Drinking Places with or without Liquor"

HdL derives their information from data supplied by the State Board of Equalization SBOE). The categories used on the attached reports by business type (Attachment B) and by major categories (Attachment C) are set by the SBOE. The category "Restaurants with Liquor" already exists as a business type. The other distinction regarding "with or without liquor" seems unnecessary. Both HdL and staff recommend that we do not deviate from SBOE categories.

Overall, staff is satisfied with the reports currently received from HdL.

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