Sales Tax Holiday Blooms Shopping Season

Local shopping centers are gearing up for coming annual “Back to School” sales tax holiday a weekend as big as during the holiday shopping season.

The Missouri state sales tax of 4.225 percent will be dropped on clothes, computers and school supplies starting at midnight Aug. 6 and lasting through Aug. 8. Many municipalities also are dropping their local sales taxes for the weekend, letting customers buy qualified items tax-free.

For seven days in August, Maryland shoppers can purchase certain clothing items costing less than $100 without paying the state's 6 percent sales tax.

The Mississippi sales tax holiday weekend is July 30 and 31st. It's back to school shopping made easier in Mississippi, but retailers hope it's not just school shoppers cashing in. Clothing and shoes will be exempt from the state's sales tax; retailers say it's a time for customers to buy.

A 2007 law established Aug. 8-16 of this year as a "sales-tax holiday" because legislators thought that by now the state would have a budget surplus and could afford the revenue loss. But tough economic times have lasted longer than anyone expected, to the point where what the state is really doing now is giving up money it doesn't have.

The tax holiday is expected to cost the state treasury about $9 million in lost revenues. That's enough to provide 1,000 families with emergency housing assistance, or state college scholarships for 4,500 students. And it comes as the state is about to grapple with how to fill an expected $1.5 billion revenue hole resulting from lower revenues brought on by the recession.