No sales tax holiday in Massachusetts this year

July 19, 2016 5:59 pm

By Ana Bottary

abottary@abc6.com

@anabottary

For the first time in seven years Massachusetts shoppers will not have a tax free weekend in August to look forward to. From appliance to furniture stores, local vendors are not happy about the legislative leaders decision.

"People have been waiting all year, and it’s not fair for them to be deprived of that," says Omar Cruz, owner of HomeTown Furnishings.

"As any economist knows, nothing stimulates the economy like consumer spending. Take a slow month, turn it into a busy month. It creates more business for us, more work for our employees, more payments to our vendors," says Robert Saquet, Owner of Egger’s furniture.

Massachusetts law makers estimated that the state would loose $26 million dollars if the tradition continued this year. However, some businesses called the 6.25% sales tax free weekend their busiest of the year.

"On that weekend we can do about a months worth of business. In just a weekend," says Steve Kahian, Owner of Kahians.

Many of the businesses we spoke with say just because Massachusetts eliminated their sales tax holiday, doesn’t mean there not going to get a deal.

"we are going to have our own tea party. We are going to have a tax free period, our store will pay the sales tax equal to the Massachusetts tax," adds Kahian.

"The specifics really are the triggers are, no tax free holiday, we will move some stuff from September to august be sure it’s there and then the specifics we will have to wait and see," says Peter Cardi, of Cardi’s Furniture.

Massachusetts has held sales tax holidays since 2004, the only other year they did not have it was in 2009.