I read this at a friend's blog, and liked it so well that, with her permission, I thought some others here might be interested in it:
From writingjen:
OK, the weekend is almost over. I didn't join the crowds at the mall, Wal-Mart and Target. I didn't rush out at dawn with my daughter's school-supplies list, or check out the latest back-to-school fashions. I didn't buy one single thing for school, not one single thing that qualified under our state's "tax holiday" exemption list (clothes, school supplies/stationery, computers under $1,500). These "holidays" are apparently a big trend nationwide; this was our first.
Our local sales tax is really high: A total of 9.75%, so I could have saved basically a tenth on whatever I'd bought. If I'd bought anything. I could use a break, money-wise.
So why didn't I partake of this "holiday" so graciously bestowed on us by the governor and General Assembly of Tennessee?
For starters, why a "holiday"? I mean, this is a deeply repressive and regressive tax. Nearly 10 percent, off the top -- that's a lot of scratch. No income tax here, and we're proud of that. So we force everyone in the state to pay 7% on everything they buy, plus whatever the local governments add on (2.75% in my case). I pay the same price for groceries, and thus the same amount of sales tax, as the poorer folks in town and the retirees on fixed incomes (some of whom are in
serious danger of getting their pensions gutted by ALCOA Inc.). I pay the same, on the other hand, as the wealthy folks in town (such as quondam Blount Countian Sen. Lamar Alexander). Sure, I may buy more expensive things than the poorer folks, but I don't buy filet mignon or smoked salmon, either. And we all pay exactly the same for a gallon of milk or a box of saltines or a loaf of bread. That means that, compared to our incomes, the poorer folks are paying a much larger percentage of their money in sales tax than I am, and I am paying a larger percentage than the richer folks. And the amount is high -- one of the highest sales tax rates around -- oppressively high.
So rather than address this problem, of having a repressively high tax that is regressive by nature, they give us a "holiday." A break, we are constantly told, to help out "working families" (not those pathetic non-working ones, mind you). Great! We need help! This is super -- wait a minute. The "holiday" doesn't apply to that jug of milk or bread. It doesn't apply to toilet paper, either, or shampoo or cheese or dish soap or hundreds of things we actually need to buy all the time.
Just school supplies, broadly defined. The stuff that we "need" because we don't support our public schools enough to provide crayons for the kids. Oh, and clothes, of course. Lots and lots of clothes. Over the past few years, the time right before most kids go back to school has ballooned into a consumer frenzy, second only to the Christmas season (don't get me started on that). Kids HAVE to have lots of new clothes. I remember the fun of getting a nice new lunchbox and notebook, the excitement of getting a new pair of shoes. I'm not begrudging that to the folks who can afford it. Knock yourselves out. Sniff the new markers, squeak around in the new tennies.
But it's gone way beyond that. A study sponsored this year by the National Retail Federation found that families with school-age children expected to spend an average of $527.08 just on back-to-school shopping. That's up 18.7% from the already bloated $443.77 they spent -- on average -- last year. That's a lot of lunchboxes, y'all.
The tax holiday is clearly intended to help, not consumers, but retailers. On the one hand, the tax "holiday" encourages us to spend even more than we otherwise might on this increasingly over-the-top consumerist frenzy that the Back-To-School Shopping Season has become. That's revenue that goes right into the retailers' hands, and all the stories I've seen about the "holiday" emphasize over and over how happy and excited the retailers were about it. I haven't found a reference for this, but I'm sure that the National Retail Federation and similar groups lobbied for the legislation to establish the tax "holidays."
And on the other hand, the tax "holiday" does not reward all retailers, but especially the big box retailers, because the kinds of items included in the "holiday," in our state at least, are those sold there. Not that there are very many non-big-box retailers around here, but you'll find them here and there: Independent booksellers,for one. Want to pick up a dictionary or atlas to help your kid with homework? It wasn't included in our state's "holiday." Neither are art supplies and sporting equipment, stuff you might need for your kids, and which you might buy at local retailers. Software? Nope.
If this holiday were really intended to help us, it would apply to everything below a certain ceiling (say, $100). That way you'd get the discount on your kids' breakfast the first day of school, not just the Pixar's Cars Lunchbox.
No, this "holiday" isn't to help us, it's to help the retailers.
It's also to help the legislators, who get to look as if they care enough about us to help us out, throw us a bone. Meanwhile, a few hours later, it's back to business as usual: A regressive tax that they don't have the backbone to reform and which they alone can afford to pay.
# Here's an article in our local paper about the tax "holiday" (The Daily Times, July 31, 2006).
# Here's about.com's summary publicationof the NRF's spending survey
# And an Associated Press write-upof the same study
# And, last but not least, The National Retail Federation's own website about the study