RDS In The Media
Sand Mountain Reporter
Presentation: City lets business work
By Jan McDaniel
The Reporter
Published April 21, 2007
The city of Albertville has done a good job over the past few years in incubating businesses and letting businesses work, according to Pete Yonce, director of business development at RDS in Birmingham.
Yonce’s presentation before the City Council Monday included charts and graphs that gave a visual picture of sales and use taxes paid to the city.
A specialist in revenue discovery systems, Yonce found $137,000 in delinquent business license fees owed the city and 857 new business license fees that were “escaping.”
The real news, however, is the overall growth, an increase of 116.8 percent from 2002 to 2007, as of April 13.
“This is good,” Yonce said. “Businesses are still coming in, and the number of active taxpayers has grown considerably.”
Though the law does not allow names to be released, a breakdown of the figures show what Yonce called some “really good signs.”
The information also tracked where the tax is coming from and what geographic areas contribute to the tax base in Albertville. Businesses are grouped into categories.
Seventeen percent of the total revenue comes from the top five taxpayers. Yonce said this is a sign of a healthy tax base.
“I believe one facet of economic development that is too often overlooked is business retention,” he said. “The city should be proud of the job it’s doing keeping businesses open and running.”
Figures in 2006 and 2007 showed positive growth, with 113 new taxpayers translating into new businesses.
Something else the city should be proud of is the fact that the number one taxpayer is responsible for only 8 percent of the revenue, Yonce said.
Sixty-five percent of the city’s total tax dollars in 2006 came from outside Alabama, with 20 percent coming from inside the city and 15 percent from outside Albertville but inside the state.
Since 2002 Albertville has collected sales tax from locations spread all over the eastern half of the country and from cities scattered throughout the western section. Yonce said this is a lot more than many cities manage.
For the calendar year 2006, the total was $8,632,557 paid by 2,846 active taxpayers. This figure includes sales tax, sellers’ use, consumers’ use and a windfall of audit sales and use tax.