Does it Matter if I Shop in South Ogden?

Sometimes we have choices where we shop and sometimes we don't. The question is: Does it really matter if I shop in South Ogden, Riverdale, Ogden or Layton?

The short answer is "yes". Whenever you shop in a particular city, a portion of your sales tax dollars go to that city.

The formula works like this. Whenever you shop at a store you are charged a sales tax. 1% of your sales tax goes directly to cities and towns. It's called the local option portion of your sales tax. Other portions of the sales tax goes to the county and to the state. I'll delve deeper into sales tax in a later post.

Out of that 1% of sales tax generated, half of that goes to the city that store is located. For example, if you spend $100 at Costco or Maceys then 50 cents will go directly to South Ogden City. If you are a resident of South Ogden and you choose to shop in neighboring cities that offer the same stores as South Ogden you are in essence sending your tax dollars to a neighboring community.

It is understood that South Ogden does not offer all the shopping needs a family may have, but if we do offer the same stores as a neighboring city we would encourage you to shop locally so that your sales tax dollars stay in our city.

As I mentioned before, I will write up a post that explains distribution of sales tax in more detail, the impact of sales tax on our budget, and what we use sales tax dollars for.

Stay tuned.