It’s back again: Iowa’s SALES TAX HOLIDAY.
What a charade. Retailers love it, because it’s a gimmick to lure people into their stores to buy things at full price, instead of waiting for a back-to-school sale.
The happy-talk label disguises its real impact: to throw away revenue while pretending to, as one report put it, “help boost the economy and give consumers a break.” It does neither.
Iowa’s policymakers are selling you a pig in a poke. You’re told you’re saving money, but you’re buying dirty water, underfunded schools and fees for amenities such as parks. The cost is estimated at over $4 million.
For two days, Iowans will spend money on the same things they would have spent money on anyway, in those two days or others, so it doesn’t boost the economy. Sales taxes do hit low-income folks hardest, but those families would be better served by a break that went all year. They still have only so much to spend in these upcoming two days.
Let’s also recognize that consumers won’t save all that much, if at all — and may in fact pay more. How many times have you rushed off to a “6 Percent Off” or “7 Percent Off” sale? Who’s to say a retailer, with this officially sanctioned “holiday” marketing, won’t bump prices by 10 percent or call off a 20 Percent Off sale that might have been in place?
But it is a deal for politicians who like to brag about cutting taxes, while pointing fingers at others when they cut teachers and police officers because budgets are tight.
If we were honest with ourselves, we would welcome Tax Day and loathe the first weekend of August.
Posted by Peter Fisher, IPP Research Director
