School Days, School Days, Spend A Lot of Money Days: School Sales Tax Holidays on the Way

2008 July 25
tags: , , ,
by Kelly

Earlier this week, I headed off to the store with school supply check list in hand. Boy, how things have changed since I was a kid. Tops on my list? Latex-free erasers. Pencils with latex-free erasers. Pencil sharpener together with Ziploc bag. The list went on and on. Shopping went pretty well until we hit two snafus - one, the question about which four folders to pick: Hannah Montana or Tinkerbell? Remarkably, my daughter went with Tinkerbell - take that Miley Cyrus! The other? The cash register. Jeez, having kids is expensive any more, and back to school season is the mother of all spending.

I’m not sure how much most parents spend on school supplies, but I can tell you that with three kids, one in preschool, one in Pre-K (yes, there’s a list for that) and one in 1st grade, I’m already starting to feel the crunch. School uniforms, backpacks, lunch bags, they all add up. Add in our little surcharge to the state and local governments (in Philadelphia, we pay 7% - thank goodness we’re not Chicago!) and the costs mount.

Fortunately, there are some states that offer a break at this time of year in the form of a sales tax holiday. After the jump, you’ll find a list of states that are observing a sales tax holiday this year - or those that have no sales tax.

Alabama: August 1-3

Alaska: No state sales tax

Connecticut: August 17-23

Delaware: No state sales tax

DC: August 2-10; November 21 - December 7

Georgia: July 31 - August 3

Hawaii: No state sales tax for consumers (only applicable to businesses)

Iowa: August 1-2

Louisiana: August 1-2

Massachusetts: August 16-17

Missouri: August 1-3

Montana: No state sales tax

New Hampshire: No state sales tax

New Mexico: August 1-3

North Carolina: August 1-3

Oklahoma: August 1-3

Oregon: No state sales tax

South Carolina: August 1-3

Tennessee: August 1-3

Texas: August 15-17

Vermont: July 12-13

Virginia: August 1-3

Please note that exempt items and dollar limits vary from state to state. In some states, cities have the chance to opt out (the list of cities doing so in Missouri is quite extensive). Click on the state links above to get more information.

Who’s missing from the list? Conspicuous in its absence is Florida, which spared its sales tax from cancellation only to change its mind, and Arizona, which voted down a measure last year to make a sales tax holiday an annual event. Similarly, Arkansas legislators tried to pass a bill this year but faced stiff opposition.

States are feeling pressure this year to avoid or shorten sales tax holidays because of the loss of revenue to the state treasuries. Clearly, some chose to forego the holiday in hopes of keeping some of that revenue - although many lawmakers worry that in states with neighboring states observing a sales tax holiday, shoppers will merely go elsewhere.

What do you think? Does the sales tax holiday encourage you to shop on a particular day in your own state? Or goes elsewhere? I would think that, in a slowed economy, shoppers would look for every discount that they could get. Tell me what you think.

from → state & local, tax policy

3 Comments leave one →
2008 July 25
Misha

Whether my state has a tax free Holiday or not doesn’t mean a fig to me. (It does, Though) I think we pay way to much for clothes and supplies anyway. So I have found alternative methods. I have already bought all my sons clothes and shoes for back to school and his school, bundles packets with all his school supplies in them, it’s usually about 32-35 bucks. I have tried shopping for individual pieces on the list, mostly I spend more time, money and energy then I’m willing to fork over. ( My son is autistic and I’m a grad student so I need all of the above in copious amounts) I hate shopping in crowds I hate groveling over a few dollars at a sale with a bunch of hysterical mothers and screaming kids. I shop at a discount store called NBC and I always pay way,way less then any body I know. I bought 400 dollars in school clothes and paid 89 dollars all quality brands. My kid will look great and I’m done shopping period!!

2008 July 27
Laurie/Halo Secretarial

Thankfully I live in a province that has no sales tax, just our federal goods and services tax (5%). But if there were “tax-free” days you can bet those would be the days I’d do my school shopping! I only have one school-age child this year to shop for (grade one), but next year I’ll have two, and a few years down the road all three boys will be in school and I’m sure that will be really pricey!

2008 July 28
Bill

When I was a student in Quebec, there was no sales tax on school supplies or books, astonishingly civilized, I thought, although I was shocked to find sales taxes on clothing, having grown up in New Jersey where there was no tax on clothes.

In the 60s and 70s in NJ, we didn’t need a tax holiday for back to school back, because the public schools I attended provided pencils, crayons, and paper to students, and there certainly wasn’t a laundry list of expensive, highly specific stuff that parents were required to buy. The weird lined paper that you used when learning to write was provided by the school. It was cheap newsprint, and a sharp pencil would tear holes in it when you were trying to write, but at least it was “free”. (And by “free” we all know that means our other taxes paid for it, but nonetheless, you didn’t have to shell out a pile of money for a ridiculously explicit laundry list of supplies, on top of needing to buy clothes and shoes for constantly growing kids).

But to answer the actual question, yes, even though I don’t have kids, I do take advantage of the sales tax holiday in Texas where I’ve lived for a very long time. I need clothes and underwear like any other citizen that supports our schools with my other taxes, and I still don’t think it’s very civilized to tax necessities or educational supplies.

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