Originally published August 9 2005
Back-to-school tax breaks announced
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Nine states have announced plans to halt the collection of sales tax on certain school-related items over the next few weeks.
Nine states and the District of Columbia are doing away with the sales tax on items such as clothes, shoes and even notebooks over the next few weeks, just in time for back-to-school shopping.
Most of the promotions last only a few days, so shoppers will have to act quickly to get a tax break.
The tax holidays, which have already expired in two other states, apply to small and large items.
For example, the tax break applies to any school supply that costs $15 or less in New Mexico.
In Massachusetts, it covers most retail purchases of $2,500 or less.
Sales tax exemptions Dates for Florida and Georgia have passed; Maryland and Tennessee will have tax holidays in 2006.
Stores may offer additional savings because these events "give retailers an opportunity to have a sale on top of what the state is doing," says Verenda Smith, government affairs associate at the Federation of Tax Administrators.
No industrywide figures are available about how much consumers save annually from these tax breaks.
But Texas estimates that shoppers will save $47.4 million in taxes this year, nearly a 3% increase from 2004.
States that cast aside these promotions when a slow economy pinched state budgets are now reviving them in hopes of stimulating local economies.
"While states give up sales tax, they usually break even on sales-tax collection," says J. Craig Shearman, a vice president at the National Retail Federation.
Sophie Beckmann, a certified public accountant at A.G. Edwards in St. Louis, says she'll avoid that temptation by making a list of necessities.
On the Missouri resident's shopping list: notebooks, pencils, glue and three or four outfits for her son, who is entering the fifth grade this month.
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