Report: Sales Tax Holidays Are 'Political Gimmicks'

Sales tax holidays are political gimmicks that concentrate spending and impose serious costs on businesses and consumers, according to a new study from the Tax Foundation.

“If the problem is that policymakers want to distract from real tax reform and get credit for being tax cutters and doing ribbon cuttings without actually achieving anything meaningful, well then it’s hard to come up with a better solution to that than sales tax holidays, because that fits perfectly,” Joseph Henchman, the report’s author and a vice president with the nonpartisan research group, told Virginia Watchdog.

Joel Davison, public relations manager for the Virginia Department of Taxation said in a statement emailed to Virginia Watchdog that the department "does not have sufficient data" to report the impact of the sales tax holidays.  

The state is hosting the , allowing consumers to purchase certain items without the usual 5 percent sales tax.

The other two Virginia tax holidays come in May for hurricane and emergency preparedness, and in October for Energy Star and Water Sense products.