By John Earp
The most recent Treasurer’s Report for the City of Jal shows that that city brought in $2,607,786.08 in gross receipts tax revenue (GRT) for the month of May. This is an increase by almost $1 million over the previous month’s GRT. The city’s GRT has been on an upward trend since 2016-2017, when its GRT was $3,452,416 for the fiscal year. The city’s GRT nearly doubled in 2017-2018, with a total of $6,012,946, and then increased by over $2.5 million to $8,526,009 in 2018-2019. The trend slowed in 2019-2020 to $9,128,801 yearly GRT, then dropped in 2020-2021 during the height of the COVID crisis to $6,710,325 yearly GRT, and then exponentially trended upwards almost threefold in fiscal year 2021-2022 with $18,223,231 in total gross receipts tax revenue. Thus far in fiscal year 2022-2023, the city’s gross receipts tax revenues have topped $22 million, with one month remaining in the fiscal year, which runs from July to June. This reflects a monthly average for FY 2022-2023 of over $2 million in GRT. The huge increase in gross receipts tax is directly linked to the current oil boom, especially with material for pipelines being shipped into Jal and taxed accordingly.
