Well, no, here in TX I think it works out well because:
People know about it and save their money to spend on that weekend
and…
I haven’t noticed stores jacking up their prices at this time…I think they realize they do well just because of the tax break.
8.25% in Houston.
~J
Well, if I had the money to spend this weekend (I think Georgia’s also extends to next weekend), I’d head down to North Georgia to buy clothes & shoes for the fall and winter - I’m going to have to pick up some new stuff shortly after school starts.
For me, the 100 mile drive to Georgia for the tax-free weekend would be worth it, if I was buying enough. I believe our sales tax here in East TN is at 9.25% - but I’d have to buy enough to make the drive/gas worth it.
We used to do tax-free weeks in New York. (Then they abolished all sales tax in my county anyway for a while, and then they reinstated it at a higher rate than it had been before - from 8% to 8.25%). Gunslinger has warned me against going anywhere that sells clothes this weekend. I think I’m going to go out there and visit the mall just to see if it’s really as bad as he thinks it is, compared to the ones back north.
Blaargh, sorry about the screwed up coding. I was merely saying that the tax break is much less than a decent sale, and decent sales are conspicuously less prevalent [IMO]during the tax free shopping.
No tax-free weekend in the DC area this year.
huh.
I live in California and I’ve never heard of such a thing. Tax free would be nice and all, but I would think that any half decent sale would lead you to save a lot more money and retain your sanity as well. What, have these people never heard of back to school sales?
lez–this whole ‘tax free weekend’ thing was created by idiot lawmakers who didn’t think straight when the bill was passed, I suppose.
And back to school sales around here don’t even start until mid Sept or Oct, when school has already been in session for 6-8 weeks.
IDBB
Come live in Minnesota. No sales tax anytime on clothing or other “essentials” There is a reason people come to the Mall of America from all over - and it isn’t for the roller coaster or Planet Hollywood.
Interesting. The back to school sales start here mid to late August.
And while I definately agree that a majority of lawmakers can be idiots, I doubt they put the law into effect for the sole purpose of pissing off retail workers.
Lsura, FYI, Georgia’s tax free holidays ended yesterday.
So I went to the mall (and didn’t realize until after I was there that there’s no Hot Topic there, and that store was the whole point of my venture), and it wasn’t that bad. Mall was not horribly crowded. But then, it’s a crappy mall and on a normal day it’s empty, so it was like fifteen times busier than normal… I’m sure Walmart was hell.
I’m with Waverly and An Arky on this. Even at 8.25% sales tax, you’ve got to spend $1212 on temporarily tax-exempt merchandise to save $100 in tax.
Whether it’s worth it to you probably depends on how the tradeoff between money, on the one hand, and time and hassle, on the other, looks to you. But ISTM that for $100 to be worth that much time, energy, and hassle, you’d have to be in the thrift-shop bracket, rather than in the $1200-in-new-clothes bracket.
And I’d think you could save 10% a lot more easily just by regularly checking the weekly sales flyers in the newspaper.
Well thank the Goddess it’s over again for another year. Hope everybody survived ok.
and lez–I almost LIVE in our Hot Topic, but only cuz the clothes are cool and they sell stuff I like to use to piss off my more conservative neighbors.
Like the Happy Bunny air freshner I bought for my car that says “You Smell Like Butt”. I got some funny looks from one of the soccer mommies after that one but I just smiled and went on my happy way.
IDBB
Hot Topic sells Pirate stuff! I want pirate stuff! And the nearest Hot Topic that I know of is in Pierre Bossier Mall, which is otherwise a desolate wasteland of crappy stores that are totally not worth trekking all the way to Shreveport for.