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Louisiana's sales tax holiday on Fri. and Sat.; 3 percent to be paid by shoppers

7 years 7 months 3 weeks ago Tuesday, August 02 2016 Aug 2, 2016 August 02, 2016 6:35 PM August 02, 2016 in News
Source: WBRZ
By: Mark Armstrong and Alicia Serrano

BATON ROUGE - The state's annual Sales Tax Holiday is on Friday and Saturday this year, however unlike past years, customers will end up paying some tax.

On Friday, Aug. 5 and Saturday, Aug. 6, shoppers will pay three percent sales tax rather than the full five percent. The discount applies to purchases including back-to-school supplies, electronics, furniture and most other retail items.

For Erinn Shaw, who runs a school uniform store, the sales tax holiday for back to school shoppers is usually great for business.
"The lines are usually pretty long at the registers and to get logos for the schools, so probably 15 percent bump in traffic," Shaw said.

That bump might not be so big this year. In order for the state to save money, lawmakers agreed to only have a partial holiday. Instead of not paying any state sales tax this weekend for school supplies, parents will pay 3 cents on every dollar they spend.

"As far as people being encouraged to turn out, it will probably deter people's reasons to fight the already long lines for back to school shopping," Shaw said.

With some schools starting back earlier than usual, many parents have already done their back-to-school shopping which means the tax holiday could be more of a bust.

"It's just a bad timing for it, if it had been two weeks earlier, it would have been better for the parents," Shaw said.

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