Slate: Don’t Fall for Back-to-School Tax Holidays

If shoppers are simply shifting their spending to save on taxes, that means the states are losing revenue. That’s certainly the position of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan think tank that estimates the popular break will cost the states offering it $300 million this year. “Revenues lost through sales tax holidays will ultimately have to be made up somewhere else, either through painful spending cuts or increasing other taxes,” it noted in a recent report. What a deal!

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