Just a reminder that the District of Columbia is having another sales tax holiday week starting at 12:01 a.m. this Friday, November 28, through midnight Sunday, December 7. Most clothing, shoes, and accessory items that are under $100 will be exempt from the District's 5.75 percent sales tax during this time. For a complete list of eligible items, click here.
For my part, I just do not get tax holidays. The obvious goal of tax holidays is to get people to buy more stuff by lowering the cost. If the problem is under-consumption, why not just stop taxing me so much all the time! As anyone who lives in the District can attest, marginal tax rates are nuts in there. This is one of several big reasons (bad schools, poor services, Marion Barry) why people have moved to the suburbs of Virginia and Maryland.
I just don't get the whole notion that we (politicians) will give you (me) a holiday from having to pay exorbitant taxes that we (politicians) recognize hurt the very businesses that we proclaim to need to stay competitive with those darn foreigners. If that's the case, shouldn't it just be permanent? More business means more more employees which means fewer people on welfare and more people that have access to stuff like healthcare through jobs and their own money rather than government programs that are poorly run. What am I not getting here?!
The same holds true for getting people to give to charity. If you want people to donate more to homeless shelters, food kitchens, and the like, don't tax them more; give them incentives by way of lower taxes and deductions from their taxes. Speaking as someone who's entire job is paid for by someone elses tax write off, I can say the American tax system has a great deal to do with job growth. My buddy Calvin wrote a great op-ed on this which you can find here. That's all I've got to say. Now I'm all angry and it's before breakfast.
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