Sales and Tax Collections

Taxable sales are gross sales minus any sales that are exempt from being taxed, like groceries or any transactions from entities such as 501(c) nonprofits.

Six percent of taxable sales are then collected by the state of Florida, making up Tax Collections.

Gross sales is the total of all sales transactions that occur in a given county.

Local option sales tax collections (LOST) are similar to taxable sales except the individual counties collect tax rather than the state. These collections are defined by the county. For instance, Escambia County collects 1.5% on top of Florida's 6% sales tax on taxable purchases, making the total sales tax 7.5%.

All of our tax collection data comes from the Florida Department of Revenue.

When looking at taxable sales, Escambia County has by far the largest at $7.9B in 2023, with Bay County at the second highest at $6.4B, and Okaloosa County at the third highest at $6.2B. This shows that although Okaloosa County has the highest gross sales, a much lower percentage of those sales are taxable. Specifically, 54% of the gross sales in Escambia County were taxable whereas Okaloosa's was around 40%. 

The higher taxable sales contribute to Escambia County's tax collections of $549.2M. Outside of grocery stores, tax-exempt sales don’t occur with any predictability. Taxable sales (which are gross sales minus exempt sales) end up being a cleaner and more consistent series over the long run. 

Covid-19 Pandemic negatively impacted the gross sales in every county, save for Santa Rosa, which trended positively in 2020. The gross sales have trended upward across most counties between 2012 and 2023. Okaloosa County had an exceptional rise of more than $4B between 2020 and 2022, an increase of 26%. However, from 2022-2023, Okaloosa county’s gross sales have fallen by 7%. The Florida Department of Revenue suggests that sizable changes in Okaloosa may be attributed to sales at Eglin AFB. Sales to government entities are exempt and Eglin would have the resources to create noticeable artifacts in the data.

LOST Collections see a similar trend as total tax collections. Escambia County reports the highest LOST collections every month with Bay and Okaloosa Counties reporting similar numbers to one another. Bay County reports slightly higher LOST collections than Okaloosa each month.