- Posted Jul. 25, 2015 at 9:00 AMNORWOOD
It’s late July, so that means there’s the annual last-second buildup for a sales tax holiday weekend in August.
The idea touted by the Massachusetts Retailers Association is in favor of such a weekend, arguing it keeps money in the state that would be spent in New Hampshire or online.
The MRA asked the Beacon Hill Institute to measure the economic impact of the holiday.
The study is based on the responses of 63 business owners asked by the MRA how the reprieve impacts their shops. Having the business association handpick owners’ answers is in not a good way to measure impact, as the MRA could have stacked the deck in emailing business owners to get favorable results.
Even then, the owners’ responses were lukewarm, at best.
The answers in favor of the concept are all the standard answers that don’t really have any specifics. They’re all vague generalizations like “it stimulates the economy” or “people spend more than they otherwise would have.”
The answers from owners who aren’t in favor are more telling.
“There is no cash flow for three weeks before,” one owner wrote.
Another stated “five weeks of business are crammed into two days” and that the totals don’t match five normal summer weeks.
A majority of business owners, 60 percent, stated in the survey they believe any sales from the weekend came from other weeks in the year, not money that would have been spent out of state.
That means the holiday isn’t any sort of economic boost, just a rearranging of when purchases would occur.
Only 13 percent said the sales come from the boogey men of “tax-free” New Hampshire and the Internet.
One of the major points the paper points out is that 72 percent of shoppers were at least somewhat likely to spend in state if there were a holiday. The question was leading at best.
There was no response in that question indicating whether to indicate if a responder was not planning to partake, just whether it would make a difference between shopping in state or elsewhere.
Another question found that 68 percent of respondents hadn’t taken advantage of the holiday. While no one likes paying taxes, savvy shoppers can find better deals on other weekends.
The institute concluded the weekend generates the equivalent of about 627 jobs. Realistically, employers aren’t hiring new workers to deal with the supposed benefits, but just scheduling more hours to their current work force. That works out to about six hours for every one of the 225,000 retail workers in the state.
Showing posts with label MRA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MRA. Show all posts
Sunday, July 26, 2015
[EDITORIAL] Massachusetts sales tax holiday not worth it
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
President Joe Biden is hiding a myriad of information on the more than 75,000 Afghans his administration has brought to the United States ...
-
A Kentucky Chuck E. Cheese appears to have taken the kid-friendly chain’s “no guns” policy too far, refusing to serve a police officer w...
-
PALM BEACH, Fla. – With Election Day less than 11 weeks away, top-rated radio host Rush Limbaugh says Democrats are “set to implode,” be...
-
(CNSNews.com) – Last year, the Obama administration went all the way to the Supreme Court to fend off challenges to the Patient Protection ...
-
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Sunday released his campaign’s immigration plan, which includes ending birthright citizen...
-
Traveling through the T. F. Green Airport of Providence, Rhode Island? If so, the Department of Homeland Security may be collecting vi...
-
As the weather heats up in Washington, DC, the Obamas as planning their summer vacation. The Boston Herald reports that President Bar...
-
I reported last year that many of Massachusetts’s SWAT teams were claiming to be private corporations that were immune from public reco...
-
'It's A Great Opportunity For Me Personally, It's Great Opportunity For Our State' ASBURY PARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) –...