Retail sales tax sees jump on construction, auto sales

Published 1:30 am Monday, August 21, 2017

OLYMPIA – Steady growth in construction and auto sales helped boost taxable retail sales by 5.3 percent in the first quarter of 2017 over the same period in 2016, reaching a total of $34.1 billion.

Retail trade sales, a subset of all taxable retail sales in the state, were up 4.1 percent to a total of $14.5 billion.

The Washington State Department of Revenue released these figures Monday, which summarize first-quarter 2017 taxable retail sales reported on Washington business tax returns. The agency uses Census Bureau classifications to report the sales revenues by sector.