Leon County Taxable Sales Recovering from COVID Pandemic

During April, May, and June of 2020, Leon County experienced double digit decreases in taxable sales growth. However, Florida Department of Revenue data now shows that Leon County is rebounding from the economic downturn caused by the COVID pandemic.

The most recent information from the Florida Department of revenue shows that consumer spending in Leon County-as measured by taxable sales- was down in January by 1.5% when compared to spending one year ago. In absolute terms, spending in January 2021 was down $6.6 million to $427.7 million. These numbers are preliminary and are subject to revisions.

At the state level, Florida experienced a 0.4% increase in January spending when compared to last year.

The Taxable Sales Report below shows that Leon county’s aggregate spending over the last 12-months ($4.262 billion), as of January 2021, was 7.9% less than the aggregate 12-month spending reported in January 2020 ($4.628 billion).

At the state-level, annual spending as of January 2021 is down 5.9% when compared to annual spending one year ago.

The chart below compares the change in aggregate spending for the previous 12-months in Leon county for each year since 2017 with the statewide numbers.

For Leon county, annual taxable sales is down -7.9% when compared to the January 2020 level. Last year at this time, taxable sales had an annual growth rate of 5.6%.

At the state-level, taxable sales growth for the last 12-month period was down 5.9% compared to the 4.7% reported during January of last year.