Sales-tax holiday makes cents for area retailers

When Kohl's manager Rodney Hall first heard that Cape Girardeau was opting out of the sales-tax holiday last month, he admits he was a little disappointed.

"A little bit, I was," Hall said. "I knew they had their reasons for doing that, but it was such a great day for us last year, I'd hate to lose those sales."

The council was considering the revenue the city would lose. But then, on June 5, the Cape Girardeau City Council reversed itself and voted to continue the city's participation in the sales tax holiday in August, a weekend when clothing and accessories, footwear, school supplies and computers are exempt from state and local taxes.

"That's one of our biggest weekends," Hall said. "We lose sales before and after, but during that weekend it was unbelievable."

Area retailers all said similar things: that the sales-tax holiday pulls local customers to the stores in droves as well as luring people from Illinois, where there is no sales-tax holiday.

"I'm thrilled that we're having a sales-tax holiday," said Jason Harvey, manager at Sears Grand. "It's great. It's good for the local community and good for the stores. It's good for everybody."

The tax holiday this year is Aug. 4 through 6. There are price limits, according to the state Department of Revenue. An article of clothing, for example, cannot exceed a taxable value of $100. School supplies are not to exceed $50 per purchase. Computer software cannot exceed $300 and personal computers or computer peripheral devices cannot exceed $3,500.

Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce president and CEO John Mehner said the city council made the right decision. Not only do shoppers buy school supplies, they also buy other items that are taxable that weekend, he said.

"The hard thing about this is it's so difficult to measure the other dollars that are spent on things that are not tax-exempt," he said. "Plus, if Cape opts out and Jackson opts in, we probably lose business from people going to Jackson to take advantage of the sales-tax holiday over there."

Jackson also is participating in the sales-tax holiday and Jackson Chamber of Commerce president Marybeth Williams said Jackson's retailers are glad, too.

"It provides an opportunity to promote sales and that's a good thing," she said. "Anything that gets them to town to spend some money."

smoyers@semissourian.com

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