The coronavirus economic shutdown may have already had its effect on county April sales tax checks. A slowdown in oilfield activity also is a possible factor.

Only Cashion and Okarche had increases in sales tax checks for April and Cashion’s was significant, a 188.5 percent jump in its April 2020 check – $33,180.65 compared to $11,772.50 in April 2019.

Okarche had seven-tenths of 1 percent increase for April 2020. However, many entities checks were higher than they were in March. Kingfisher City Treasurer Anita James told city commissioners last week that Kingfisher’s April check was about on par with its 2017 check.

All other municipalities in the county had a decrease and the state collection as a whole was under that of 2019.

The April distribution of sales tax collections by the Oklahoma Tax Commission primarily represents local tax receipts from February business.

Companies that remit more than $2,500 monthly in sales tax receipts are required to file and pay electronically. The monies they reported this period represent sales from Feb. 16 to 29 and estimated sales from March 1 to March 15.

The disbursement of $146,931,074 in sales tax collections returned to the cities and towns reflected a decrease of $894,385 from the $147,825,459 distributed to the cities and towns in April last year. The use tax disbursement to cities and towns was $20,964,255.

Use tax checks for selected area towns and Kingfisher County for April compared to April last year follow with the 2020 amount listed first:

Cashion – $4,756.53 and $5,903.27.

Crescent – $4,832.40 and $4,273.24.

Dover – $1,666.57 and $1,975.40.

Kingfisher – $60,901.75 and $52,892.72.

Okarche – $7,581.05 and $17,613.98.

Watonga – $18,604.49 and $52,504.31.

Kingfisher County – $126,606.18 and $363,179.40.