Collections of road tax lag behind projections | The Augusta Chronicle

Collections of the new transportation sales tax are below state projections for a fifth month in the Augusta region and two other Georgia regions where voters approved the tax, according to state data released Tuesday.

The extra 1-cent tax on sales fell 14.7 percent be­low state estimates for the Central Savannah River Area region in May, generating $827,741 less than the state’s projections, which it revised in November.

For the first five months of the year, transportation sales tax collections for the 13-county CSRA region are down 14 percent overall. Collections in the two other areas with the tax, the Columbus-area River Valley district and Vidalia-area Heart of Georgia-Altamaha district are down 10 percent and 17 percent, respectively.

While the tax runs out in 10 years and the voter-approved schedule of transportation projects isn’t easy to change, the lower collections aren’t cause for alarm, said Don Grantham, former Augusta commissioner who now represents the area on the state transportation board.

“We’ve only been in this thing six months and from the first three months, I still don’t think we’ve recovered,” Grantham said. In its early days, many businesses lagged in collecting the extra 1 cent tax, while new state exemptions cut unexpected amounts from sales tax revenues.

via Collections of road tax lag behind projections | The Augusta Chronicle.