A modest proposal
It's nice when Democrats focus on things that help regular people out. Granted, a sales tax holiday is unlikely to win awards for "most exciting bill ever," but to the extent it helps poor and middle class families clothe and equip their children for school, why not do it?
While retailing has improved in Clark County over the last decade or so, mostly because it's insane to risk being caught in a traffic jam on the Interstate Bridge to save five bucks, the Jantzen Beach shopping center on Hayden Island in Oregon still fills up routinely with cars bearing Washington license plates. Recapturing a little bit of that business should help merchants on this side of the river as well.
Saying it is "an especially appropriate idea for our border counties," state Rep. Jim Moeller today (Dec. 12) said that in the upcoming 2007 session of the Washington Legislature he will sponsor a plan creating a sales-tax holiday for citizens and businesses.We're probably going to have a regressive tax system in this state in at least the near future, so occasionally making it not regressive is a good thing.
"At least a dozen other states already provide their citizens and businesses a break from the sales tax for a couple days a year -- usually in August to help back-to-school shoppers," said Moeller, D-Vancouver.
Moeller's sales-tax holiday would apply to clothing, shoes, school-supplies, textbooks, computers and other school-related items. Washington shoppers and businesses would see the tax break the second weekend every August.
"This proposal would recapture a large chunk of the millions of dollars in revenue our stores lose to Oregon every year," Moeller predicted.
Businesses in Spokane and other parts of eastern Washington bordering Idaho face a situation similar to Clark County's predicament.
"My proposal is a modest but genuine and reliable tax break for average middle-class people," Moeller said. "These are the thousands of Washington families who do the best they can to buy school-supplies and still make ends meet before the start of every school year."
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His proposal would extend the tax break to clothing of no more than $150 an item, computers of no more than $2,000 each, and school-supplies of no more than $150 apiece.
New York state offered the first sales-tax holiday nine years ago. Other states that have recently provided the break include Alabama, Connecticut, Iowa, New Mexico and Texas.
While retailing has improved in Clark County over the last decade or so, mostly because it's insane to risk being caught in a traffic jam on the Interstate Bridge to save five bucks, the Jantzen Beach shopping center on Hayden Island in Oregon still fills up routinely with cars bearing Washington license plates. Recapturing a little bit of that business should help merchants on this side of the river as well.
