The new year will bring changes in the number of Iowa towns charging a penny of local option sales tax. Beginning January 1, all of Emmett County will charge that extra penny, bringing the total sales tax there to seven percent. Renee Mulvey at the Iowa Department of Revenue says a handful of towns, had been holding out, but voted this year to join the rest of Emmett County to charge the extra penny.
"Those jurisdictions include the towns of Estherville, Doliver, Gruver, and Wallingford. It also includes any business in an unincorporated area," Mulvey explains. Mulvey says paying the seven percent sales tax has become the norm in Iowa.
Mulvey says, "I have on January 1, 66 of Iowa’s 99 counties are at a full seven percent. That means they have the six percent state rate and a one percent local option rate county wide." Mulvey says Johnson County is the only county where the sales tax remains at six percent countywide.
Meanwhile, the local option penny sales tax expires in one eastern Iowa town. Residents of the city of Palo decided after five years not to renew their local option tax.