Austin CPA and Bookkeeping AlternativeThe two local percents on a sale

How a sales deposit meets the month

Texas state sales tax is 6.25 percent. The city rate in Austin is 1 percent, local code 2227016. The transit rate, Austin MTA, is another 1 percent, local code 3227999. Stacked, the total a customer pays is 8.25 percent. Austin's stacked rates on this page were taken from the Comptroller locator plus the local-rate table on the reading day 28 September 2026.

The interesting part is not the arithmetic. It is which month gets the sale. A Saturday at the stadium, a Thursday night on Rainey, a busy lunch, the cash can land on Monday. If Monday is a new month, the deposit and the work just got divorced. Sales tax follows the sale, not the morning the batch settled, when those dates disagree.

The Longhorns are the teams at the university, the mascot is the steer named Bevo, and people shorten the name to the Horns. Texans feel that name in the fall whether or not they have a ticket. We feel the calendar as Texans. A home weekend that rings the register still has to land in the month the meals were served.

What we do with the deposit

We do not file the sales tax return as a theatrical event. We make sure the month that earned the sale is the month that holds it, and that the books and the bank agree before anyone talks about the payment. A report pulled from an open month will cheerfully send the wrong figure to the return.

If you sell in more than one city, the local piece changes and the state piece does not. We read the location you actually sell in. The city on a letterhead is not how the sale location is chosen. If a locator result and your day to day disagree, we stop and ask before a number goes anywhere.

The source, said plainly

City code 2227016 at 1 percent, transit code 3227999 at 1 percent, state 6.25 percent, total 8.25 percent. The Comptroller pages are the source, checked 28 September 2026. When a public rate changes, this page is rewritten and the check date moves with it. A rate remembered with no dated page next to it comes down.

Nothing in the rate list above is a price for your own return. Your facts decide what you owe. The pages can tell you the public rate and the habit that keeps a deposit in the right month. The form at the bottom is how you ask about your own file.

A weekend, then Monday's batch

Think about a busy Saturday and a batch that settles Monday. If Monday is the first of a new month, the bank shows the cash in the new month and the meals were served in the old one. We put the sale in the old month and let the clearing amount explain Monday. The sales report then matches the weekend you remember, not the morning the processor felt like paying you.

The same habit covers a festival weekend, a home game, or a Thursday that ran long. The public rates do not change with the mood of the night. 6.25 percent to the state, 1 percent to the city under code 2227016, 1 percent to Austin MTA under code 3227999. What changes is only the month we assign. Get that wrong and a later amendment is how you meet the mistake. Get it right in the close and the report is dull, which is what you want. Dull is the compliment. A weekend you can explain on Monday is a weekend that will not need a letter in the summer.