Ted Remsnyder is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media online shopping and retail sales totaled more than $1 billion in Greene County in 2021. Online sales fueled the county’s 12th consecutive year of growth in sales tax revenue. According to the Greene County Economic Development Corporation, the county surpassed its sales tax payments from the state by $6.5 million in 2021, over the level recorded in 2020. The impact of online shopping on sales tax revenue grew in 2018 when a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed taxes to be collected on the receiving end of online sales instead of where the products were shipped from. “It’s a game-changer,” Greene County Administrator Shaun Groden said. “The sales tax now is applied to the receiving address, not the shipping address. Previously, when you went online [in New York] and you ordered your sneakers and it came from someplace like Philadelphia, there was no sales tax. But if you went to the mall or Walmart, there would be sales tax. ..." Groden said, “When you throw in the pandemic, for many months the malls [were] closed. But the federal stimulus money was being pushed out to stimulate the economy. So people still bought their sneakers; they just went online to do it. They did more shopping and they did it online. ...” Groden noted that sales tax is the county’s single-largest revenue stream. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.