Long Island’s Sales Tax Collections Weaken in October

By Hank Russell

The New York State Comptroller’s Office recently released a report showing that sales tax collections on Long Island last month were tepid, mostly as a result of a decline in revenue taken in by Suffolk.

During the month of October, Long Island collected $269.6 million in sales taxes, according to the comptroller’s office. That is a meager 0.1% increase from last October, when collections were at $269.3 million. Sales tax collections so far this year totaled $2.909 billion, which also rose by only 0.1%.

On a monthly basis, Long Island saw a 23% drop in collections compared to September, when $350.3 in sales tax were brought into the region.

When broken down by county, Nassau had a stronger yearly performance. This October, $124.2 million in sales tax was collected; that is up 2.6% from October 2023, when $121.1 million was brought in. During the first ten months of the year, however, Nassau brought in approximately $1.298 billion, a mere 0.2% improvement over January-October 2023 at nearly $1.296 billion.

In Suffolk, sales tax collections fell 1.9% year over year from $148.0 million in October 2023 to $145.1 million this October. Year-to-date collections (January-October) saw an insignificant decline this year to $1,607,681,685 from $1,608,107,189 the first 10 months of 2023.

Like Long Island, Nassau and Suffolk saw double-digit drops in its revenue compared to the previous month. Nassau’s collections were 17% lower than in September, which had $149.7 million in revenue. In Suffolk, the county saw 27% greater revenue in September, when they gathered $199.8 million. 

Based on the data, Suffolk was one of the 21 counties in New York that did not see year-over-year growth, while Nassau joined the 35 other counties that did. The comptroller’s office noted that county and city collections statewide (not including New York City) totaled $884 million, an increase of 0.4%.

“October growth in statewide sales tax collections was led by New York City, buoying monthly performance after virtually flat statewide growth in September,” state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said. “Recent volatility in sales tax collections warrants caution for local governments as they finalize their budgets for next year.”