Tax free holiday pays off

By Staff
Jonathan Willis
It looks like large retail, shoe and electronic stores fared well during the recent sales tax-free weekend.
Early indications from the Alabama Retail Association show that most shoppers looked for bargains as they prepared to send their children back to school.
It will be two months before the official results are in, but a number of merchants already have reported increased sales compared to last year's sales tax holiday.
Nancy Dennis, a spokeswoman for the retail association, said shoe stores and electronic stores seem to have fared well based on early surveys the group has collected.
"People went out and shopped, but I think what we're going to find is that they were still looking for discounts and sales so they spent more time in discount retailers," Dennis said.
Locally, some businesses reported higher weekend sales than others.
Nikki Williams, an assistant manager at Peebles Department Store in Russellville, said that Saturday sales were higher than most previous weekends.
She said the store sold more adult clothing than children's sizes, however.
It was the fourth year for Alabama's sales tax holiday, which ran from 12:01 a.m. Friday to midnight Sunday. Geared toward back-to-school shoppers, the three-day weekend has actually given sales tax collections a bump in previous years, as people spent money on food and other items that aren't exempt from taxes.
The state and most local governments lifted their sales taxes on clothes, computers, school supplies and other exempt items over the weekend.
Dennis said the state has seen sales tax collections decline for 11 consecutive months.
"We are just hoping to be level and not seeing a drop-off," she said.
June collections were down by nine percent from the previous year.
"We won't know for sure how businesses did until the first of October when the figures are complete," Dennis said.
The Alabama Retail Association's goal for this year's holiday was for retailers to either break even with or capture 98 percent of last year's sales, Dennis said. The state will report August sales tax collections in about two months.
"Because we've had 11 months of declines, we didn't expect the sales tax holiday to break it," she said. "We feel good about how things are at this point."