What You Don’t Know About Folsom’s Sales Tax
- Sacramento County and the State of California get the majority of sales tax you pay. For every dollar you spend in Folsom today, 7.75 cents is added for sales tax, of which the majority (85%) goes to the state.
- We get even less when you buy things online. All the sales tax you pay in online purchases goes into a county pool, and is then divided up to all the cities in Sacramento County, based on each cities’ percentage of in-store sales – so we get a fraction of that 1 cent.
For example, if you spend a dollar in a Folsom store, Folsom gets 1 penny. If you spend a dollar online, that 1 penny goes into the county pool, and if Folsom only represents 10% of total in-store sales (county-wide) that month, then we only get 1/10th of that penny. The rest goes to other cities for their general funds.
- As much as 40% of the sales tax generated in Folsom comes from out-of-town shoppers. What this means is that an additional 1-cent sales tax will generate $29 million for public safety, traffic improvements, park and trail repairs, and so on— of which $11.6 million will be paid by visitors. (Source: City of Folsom Department of Finance).
- Folsom currently has one of the lowest sales tax rates in the county. While other cities are investing – funding programs that help their businesses and communities thrive, and increase their reserves – Folsom has no revenues to do any of these.