City, state differ on sales tax refund rules, despite recent changes

As of this month, the city of Sidney will finally receive one year of advanced notification before the state takes refunds out of the city’s local sales taxes.

In the past, if companies qualified for sales tax refunds on projects, they would file an application from the state. The city received no information on this.

Every month retailers collect sales tax and send it to the department of revenue in Lincoln. Then, each month the department of revenue sends a check for local sales tax to Sidney, sometimes with large refunds subtracted from the original amount.

“Some of those months, we lost a...