Area consumers take advantage of holiday

August 2, 2010

By Bryan Davis
Daily Times Leader
Good economic news is hard to find these days, but retailers around the state are saying that the past weekend’s sales tax holiday brought a boost to business.
The second annual holiday was observed Friday-Sunday by West Point businesses and other stores in the Golden Triangle area.
The purpose of lifting the seven percent sales tax for the 48 hour period is to alleviate some of the economic pain in back-to-school shopping.
Not all items were eligible for sales tax exemption. Only clothing items and certain footwear were available tax-free, but the items that were free of tax brought many people out over the weekend.
Eighteen states participated in the holiday. The Mississippi Legislature passed the state’s tax exempt day into law last year. Since then many municipalities have backed out of observing the holiday, but West Point nor any other town in the Golden Triangle were among them.