Williston tops Fargo for taxable sales

[Hammerhead]

Published June 14, 2012, 11:30 PM
Williston tops Fargo in taxable sales and purchases
By: Teri Finneman, INFORUM
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/364250/


Williston surpassed Fargo in taxable sales and purchases by $100 million in 2011, a report released Thursday shows.
Williston had 88.5 percent growth from 2010 to 2011, compared to Fargo’s 10 percent.

When did you ever think a 10% growth in taxable sales would not look awesome?

[bisonaudit]

Published June 14, 2012, 11:30 PM
Williston tops Fargo in taxable sales and purchases
By: Teri Finneman, INFORUM
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/364250/


Williston surpassed Fargo in taxable sales and purchases by $100 million in 2011, a report released Thursday shows.
Williston had 88.5 percent growth from 2010 to 2011, compared to Fargo’s 10 percent.

When did you ever think a 10% growth in taxable sales would not look awesome?

I think if you polled the mayors, city commissioners and the police chiefs around the state they'd take the 10% rather than the 88.5%.

[GradBison]

When did you ever think a 10% growth in taxable sales would not look awesome?

When there is a locale that saw an increase of 635%.

[tony]

Published June 14, 2012, 11:30 PM
Williston tops Fargo in taxable sales and purchases
By: Teri Finneman, INFORUM
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/364250/


Williston surpassed Fargo in taxable sales and purchases by $100 million in 2011, a report released Thursday shows.
Williston had 88.5 percent growth from 2010 to 2011, compared to Fargo’s 10 percent.

When did you ever think a 10% growth in taxable sales would not look awesome?

That 10% still looks very good because it's more likely that it is sustainable growth (plus there's a lot of retail just outside of Fargo.)

I'm having trouble reconciling:

Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks and Minot reported growth ranging from 8 percent in Grand Forks to 39.7 percent in Minot. These four cities increased taxable sales and purchases by $6.582 billion over 2010.

Let's think about that for a second... that's about 250,000 people - so everybody spent $26,000 more in 2011 than in 2010? Oh wait...

Fargo’s total was $2.4 billion compared to Williston’s $2.5 billion. Williston had 88.5 percent growth from 2010 to 2011, compared to Fargo’s 10 percent.

So Fargo's 2010 retail sales total is x where x * 1.1 = $2.4b or $2.18 billion, an increase of $220 million.

The "by" in the bolded portion of the quote should probably be a "to" or, less likely, the "four cities" should read "the state." Either way, it's a big difference.

Edit: It's the first option. North Dakota's taxable sales increased by $5.3 billion from 2010 to 2011 ($19 billion = $13.7 billion increased by 39%).

[KSBisonFan]

Published June 14, 2012, 11:30 PM
Williston tops Fargo in taxable sales and purchases
By: Teri Finneman, INFORUM
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/364250/


Williston surpassed Fargo in taxable sales and purchases by $100 million in 2011, a report released Thursday shows.
Williston had 88.5 percent growth from 2010 to 2011, compared to Fargo’s 10 percent.

When did you ever think a 10% growth in taxable sales would not look awesome?

$95 million of that money was spent on beer, hookers and antibiotics.

[WYOBISONMAN]

Oilfield equipment is damn expensive stuff. Pretty easy to see how this happened. The latest well we participated in located in Williams County (Williston) cost $12.8 million to drill and complete. Lots of sales tax revenue generated on each of those wells....and most of it likely gets credited to the City of Williston where most of the oilfield service companies and suppliers are located.

[BisonVifte]

Oilfield equipment is damn expensive stuff. Pretty easy to see how this happened. The latest well we participated in located in Williams County (Williston) cost $12.8 million to drill and complete. Lots of sales tax revenue generated on each of those wells....and most of it likely gets credited to the City of Williston where most of the oilfield service companies and suppliers are located.

And the inflated prices of goods and services in the western part of the state also.

[4mcruenomore]

I am ready to move to Fargo, sick of the oil field trash.

[Hammerhead]

And those products were consumed in the same order.

$95 million of that money was spent on beer, hookers and antibiotics.

[WYOBISONMAN]

And the inflated prices of goods and services in the western part of the state also.

The price of drilling a well in Williams County has gone from about $6.5 million to $12.8 million over 3-4 years. A hell of a jump. Part of that is due to there being more frac stages in each well, but that does not account for all of it. I think there is a lot of price gouging going on out there.