NR# 3-P
Date: January 16,2001
Customer and Taxpayer Services Division
Parrish Announces 2000 Taxable Sales – First Quarter
Claude Parrish, Chairman, State Board of Equalization (BOE) announced
today that taxable sales in California continued to grow at a healthy rate during the
first quarter of 2000. Transactions subject to the sales and use tax totaled $99.9 billion
during the first quarter of 2000, an increase of $12.7 billion or 14.6 percent over the
first quarter of 1999. "This shows that the California economy continues to grow and
business creation is expanding," stated Parrish.
In constant dollar terms, taxable sales grew by 12.5 percent over the same
quarter a year ago. The California Taxable Sales Deflator measured an inflation rate of
1.8 percent for the first quarter of 2000.
Retail stores posted taxable sales of $64.6 billion, a 14.9 percent
increase over the same period a year ago. Retailers of durable goods experienced a 17.7
percent increase, and non-durable goods’ retailers experienced a 12.0 percent
increase.
In the durable goods category, new car dealers had another quarter of
impressive growth. New car dealers posted taxable sales of $11.1 billion during the
quarter, a 22.8 percent increase over the first quarter of last year. This follows a 22.5
percent increase shown in the fourth quarter of 1999. Retailers of building materials
registered continuing strong growth in sales as California’s construction industry
continued to perform well. Building material dealers posted taxable sales of $4.9 billion,
up 15.1 percent from a year ago. Construction contractors had taxable transactions of $3.7
billion, an increase of 4.8 percent over the first quarter of 1999.
Gasoline consumption showed only a modest increase due to the continued
high price of gasoline. Consumption increased to 3.5 billion gallons, an increase of only
2.6 percent from the first quarter 1999. The average price of gasoline during the first
quarter was $1.442 per gallon, an increase of 27.8 percent from the previous year’s
first quarter. Service station sales during the first quarter of 2000 reflected this
increase in price, posting a robust 29.8 percent increase with sales of $5.4 billion.
Most other non-durable goods retailers experienced moderate to strong
increases in sales. Restaurants had sales of $8.4 billion, increasing 9.8 percent and
general merchandise stores realized sales of $8.3 billion, an increase of 9.3 percent.
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