Shreveport Times: Sales tax holiday runs Friday, Saturday
media mentionWritten by Mike Hasten
BATON ROUGE – A chance to beat the state out of four cents sales tax for two days starts at midnight when the annual fall Sales Tax Holiday begins.
The “holiday” that runs Friday and Saturday affects only state sales tax, so most purchases will still have local taxes attached. Also, some items – like vehicles that have to be licensed, food you can eat without cooking and services – will still be taxed by the state.
Criticism of sales tax holidays by national tax policy groups have no impact on the public’s desire to get a break, regardless of how small, state lawmakers say.
Rep. Joel Robideaux, R-Lafayette, and Sen. Neil Riser, R-Columbia, chairman of the House and Senate committees that deal with tax matters, said the groups confuse offering taxpayers a break and setting tax policy.
They say people like it because they save a little and merchants like it because they get more business.
The Tax Foundation last week criticized the holiday as a “political gimmick.”
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy this week labeled the tax holiday “more hype than help.”
“Sales tax holidays make great politics but they don’t solve enduring problems,” an ITEP report says. “They fall far short of accomplishing what advocates claim, that is, helping hard-pressed consumers or local retailers.”
ITEP says tax holiday help the affluent much more than those with low income because the more a shopper spends, the more he saves.
“They have more discretion about when to spend their money, unlike families on a fixed budget who have less flexibility to spend during whichever three days the state chooses,” the report says. “There is also evidence of unscrupulous retailers holding fake sales in which prices are not, in fact, reduced.”