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Council asks staff to quantify sales‑tax revenue from warehouses and online sales
Summary
Council members asked city finance staff to analyze how much local sales tax is generated in industrial/warehouse zones — including where sales shifted online — and to provide address‑level, aggregated data to show revenue contributions from non‑retail businesses.
Council members asked staff to clarify whether warehouses and industrial businesses that close storefronts but continue Internet sales still generate local sales tax.
A finance staff member explained the situs for sales tax collection can depend on where the sale is delivered or where the point of sale is established and that the State provides limited business‑specific data for confidentiality reasons. "Just because it is a warehouse does not mean it does not pay sales tax," the staff member said, and described a multi‑step process to identify zoning areas, assemble address lists and use a consultant to obtain aggregated sales‑tax totals for non‑retail industrial addresses.
Staff said the analysis is in progress and will take time because it requires matching zoning lists with state sales‑tax data and potentially using a consultant to generate a non‑identifiable aggregation of revenue from specific addresses. Council directed staff to continue the work and return with an aggregate estimate of sales tax collected from industrial/warehouse areas so the council can assess economic benefits of warehouse development.
