Texas’s Sales Taxes Plunge by Most in a Decade on Shutdown

The coronavirus shutdowns caused Texas’s sales-tax collections to drop by the most in a decade.

The revenue is the biggest source of funds for the state government, which doesn’t levy an income tax. With business closed and unemployment surging, those collections in May dropped 13.2% from a year earlier to $2.6 billion, the steepest decline since January 2010, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar said in a statement on Monday.

Most of May’s sales-tax revenue is based on purchases in April, when much of the state had social distancing requirements in place to halt the spread of the coronavirus. The receipts are ...