Download Adjusted Net Gain or Loss Comparison for Taxable Retail Sales The

Adjusted Net Gain or Loss Comparison for Taxable Retail Sales
The Taxable Retail Sales (TRS) Comparison shows the TRS for the adjusted and original
sourcing models, and the difference between them by jurisdiction. The following tables also
compare the four intermediate estimates, each of which shows one independent change to the
data. These four intermediate estimates are labeled "Employment Match", "East/West Indicator",
"LNI Warehouse Match", and "New Industry Averages".
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Employment Match—the change made for this intermediate estimate was the use of
data with an improved match between DOR and Employment Security (ES) data. In the
original estimates, some sales were excluded from the data because they were made in
locations where the firm did not have employees. In most cases the elimination of these
sales was appropriate because the lack of employees indicated that they were already
destination sourced. However, because of the imperfect DOR/ES match, some of the
sales were incorrectly removed. The improved match caused fewer sales to be removed,
which raised the estimates overall.
•
East/West Indicator—the East/West indicator relates to the choice of the east or west
cell average for firms that were not surveyed. In the original model, each non-surveyed
firm had either eastern or western cell averages, depending on the firm's headquarter
location. These averages applied to all of the firm's locations. In this intermediate step in
the adjusted model, a multi-location firm has the appropriate eastern or western cell
averages for each of its locations
•
LNI Warehouse Match—this intermediate step relates to the allocation of loss from
remote sales. The survey asks firms whether they source their remote sales to the
location of their warehouse, headquarters or the destination of the sale. In the original
model, the database gave no indication of where a firm's headquarters were located. For
firms that answered that they sourced their remote sales to their headquarters, the model
allocated their remote sales to their location with the biggest TRS. This intermediate step
utilizes Labor and Industries (LNI) data on firm headquarter location, so that the remote
loss is allocated to the firm's known headquarter location.
•
New Industry Averages—in this intermediate step, the cell averages that were used for
non-surveyed firms were scrutinized for reasonability and appropriately adjusted. A
major improvement related to the cell averages of questions that had parts that add to
100%. It was discovered that some survey respondents that answered 100% to part "a",
left part "b" blank instead of writing in 0%. In some of these cases, WSU keyed part "b"
as missing instead of 0%. This resulted in incorrect calculations of the cell average of
part "b". These miss-keys were corrected and the resulting industry averages were
calculated and used.
•
All Adjustments—In addition to the 4 adjustments mentioned above, other adjustments
were rolled into the final adjusted results. These adjustments include: using improved
NAIC coding for firms, improving the allocation of sales from leased warehouses, and
correcting any other mistakes that were found (e.g. miscoded location codes). Therefore
it is important to note that changes from the four intermediate steps will not add up to the
changes in the adjusted model.