Shoppers go for the gold on tax holiday
Critics say state needs money
Savvy shoppers crowded Boston-area malls and stores yesterday, taking advantage of the state's fifth annual sales tax holiday and saving 5 percent on items ranging from school supplies to expensive electronics. Retailers, fearful that the sluggish economy would keep spending down, were relieved.
"We are extremely busy," said Mohammed Azad, manager of Sears at CambridgeSide Galleria, where families pored over gas stoves and examined refrigerators. Nearly 100 of his 135 employees were on hand yesterday to handle customers - three times a normal Saturday's staffing. And by 10:30 in the morning, the store - having opened two hours early at 7 a.m. - had racked up nearly twice its usual sales.
Retailers have come to depend on the two-day sales tax holiday to spur spending, while consumers have come to expect it. Items priced up to $2,500 - except specialties like gas and tobacco - are tax-exempt. Since clothes are always tax-free, big draws yesterday were appliances, computers, and furniture.
"We're going to come back again tomorrow" for a stove, said Mariam Haddad of Somerville, who waited until this weekend to buy a crib for her day-care business and a digital camera for her 14-year-old daughter.
Sale tags on televisions at the Galleria's Sears store helped divert Allan Janik of Somerville from his original buying mission.
"I'm authorized by my wife to purchase a dehumidifier," he said, standing before a bank of flat-screen televisions. "But I think I'll go home and call her and see if I can get the green light to buy this" TV, he said, pointing at a 32-inch Panasonic, marked down $150 to $700.
Outside the Galleria, where manager Issie Shait said he counted 5 percent more shoppers than the first day of last year's tax holiday, two
"Someone told me the other day that there was no tax this weekend," said Keith Guerin of Charlestown, eyeing his new TV, which cost about $1,700.
His wife, Noelle, shook her head. "That was his selling point to make me agree to this," she said.
Shoppers stood in a long line outside the mall's Apple store, which had opened at midnight and planned to stay open for 24 hours.
"My son is entering Suffolk University in two weeks and he needs a laptop," said Donna Cesario of Winthrop, who figured she saved about $100 in tax by waiting until this weekend to buy.
In Woburn, Target manager Josh Sheldon said his store was doing "considerably better" than last year. "Flat-screen televisions have been going out the door fast," he said, and parents of college students were scooping up bedding, microwaves, and other dorm necessities.
Joey Algeri, an 18-year-old from Burlington about to start his freshman year at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, pushed a shopping cart containing a mini-refrigerator.
"We were going to go to New Hampshire," where every day is sales tax-free, said his mother, Mary Algeri, "but we didn't have to." Despite the beach-worthy weather, they were headed from Target to Best Buy and Office Max. "We're not done yet," she said. "We need tons of stuff."
Other customers with tighter budgets were stocking up on more modest purchases.
"We needed to go school shopping, so we waited until this weekend to do it," said Christine Hilbrunner, whose two children were helping fill a cart with notebooks, glue, and scissors at Target.
Back in Cambridge, at a camera shop called Calumet Photographic, Coleen Caster of Nahant, a nursing director at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professional wedding photographer, said she'd waited three months for the tax-free weekend to buy a $680 telephoto lens.
"Everything's so much more expensive," she said, referring to the high price of gas and food. "If you can save on tax, it's worth it."
Despite the holiday's apparent success, critics say it is an expensive gimmick that generates little additional economic activity.
"These things are always politically popular, and it's hard to stop them once they start," said Michael Widmer, the president of the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation, a public spending watchdog group. "But when you have a billion-dollar budget shortfall, the state can't afford to give up another $15 million without any real payback." 