Holiday shopping helps boost Oklahoma revenues

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Tary Davis-Johnson and Nancy Jewell arrange more than 300 pieces of Jewell’s Department 56 Village collection Friday at Oakwood Mall. (Staff Photo by BONNIE VCULEK)

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January 15, 2013

Holiday shopping helps boost Oklahoma revenues

By Jeff Mullin, columnist Enid News and Eagle The Enid News and Eagle Tue Jan 15, 2013, 02:33 PM CST

OKLAHOMA CITY — State finance officials say a brisk holiday shopping season helped boost Oklahoma's sales tax receipts last month to an all-time monthly high and sends a strong signal about the state's economic health.

But state Secretary of Finance Preston Doerflinger said Tuesday despite the strong sales tax collections, overall collections to the state's general fund were down slightly in December and for the first six months of the fiscal year, mostly due to lower oil and natural gas prices.

Total general fund collections in December were $528.9 million, down by 2.5 percent from December 2011.

Doerflinger says sales tax receipts to the state's general fund totaled $172 million in December. That is the highest for any month ever and an increase of 12.1 percent over December 2011.

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