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The sales tax holiday launches the school shopping season for parents, who wonder why corsets are listed.
By AMY WIMMER
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 29, 2001
For a few minutes Saturday morning, Linda Wallen, an art teacher at Coachman Fundamental Middle School, was the most popular person in the crowded school supplies aisle at St. Petersburg's Wal-Mart.
Armed with a list of taxable and non-taxable items she had clipped from the newspaper, Wallen could easily check that glue won't be taxed during the state's tax-free week, but staples will.
Other shoppers were puzzled.
"We're trying to figure out what you can and can't get -- you can't get highlighters," Charlene Desantis, shopping with her daughter Nicole, said to a stranger standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her in the school supplies aisle.
"Yes," answered the other woman, Cindy Brickey, "but you can get corsets."
After four consecutive years of tax-free shopping at back-to-school time, consumers have come to count on their week of discounts of 6 to 7 percent, depending on the county tax rate. That doesn't mean shoppers understand why bandannas and wallets are tax-free through next Sunday, but handkerchiefs and checkbook covers aren't.
School supplies priced at $10 or less are new to the tax-free list this year, and the maximum amount that can be spent on other items has been cut from $100 to $50.
Consumers aren't the only ones counting on the tax-free holiday. Retailers hope it will bring much-needed relief to their slow-selling summer.
Carlos Flores, a manager at the Gandy Boulevard Target in Tampa, said his store was so busy during last year's tax break that he has added six employees this year to accommodate the rush in the afternoons and evenings.
"Not in the morning, though," he said, looking out at a few customers Saturday morning. "It will get busier -- based on our history -- in the afternoon and all the way to closing."
Last time Jenny Higginbotham of Inverness had checked, Florida's sales tax holiday was threatened with extinction by state lawmakers. She learned early Saturday it had survived.
"Just today someone said, "Well, it's going on now.' So I decided to go get things now," Higginbotham said as she loaded some purchases into her car in the Big Kmart parking lot in Brooksville.
After a stop at Kmart, Higginbotham and her two sons, 7-year-old Cody and 12-year-old Johnny, planned to stop at Wal-Mart and Sears for jeans, shirts, shoes and other school clothing. If she spends her usual $300 budget, her savings will total $21.
"I'm fixing to take advantage of it," she said of the tax holiday. "Every little bit helps."
At Wal-Mart in Port Richey, eighth-grader-to-be Kenny Germer piled folders and other school supplies into his stepmother's shopping cart. He picked up orange, blue, red and any other color he could get his hands on, saying he doesn't really care what color or supplies he gets.
"I just got to have enough of it," he said.
After finishing there, he planned to head north on U.S. 19 to Gulfview Square Mall for clothes. Then he'll get picky. He wants "skateboarder clothing."
"What clothing you wear defines whether you're going to be popular for the year," he said.
Not everyone taking advantage of the savings was going back to school. Brigitte Wiley, who has 10 grandchildren, planned to buy birthday presents for them while savings are good. Melynda Rigdon, who lives in Sebring, was in Tampa to celebrate the arrival of her nephew Christian and bought him a new outfit. Otherwise, she would have avoided the store.
Others anticipate tax-free shopping days as if they were the day after Thanksgiving.
"I look forward to it every year," said Debby Wismer, mother of three, who was shopping Saturday at Tyrone Square Mall in St. Petersburg. "I'd miss it if they didn't have it."
Many in those crowds are confused each year over what is and isn't on the state's list -- and how those items are selected.
Marjorie McLaughlin, shopping at Wal-Mart in St. Petersburg, wanted to buy a backpack for her granddaughter, who is starting kindergarten. But she couldn't decide whether such a bag was a school supply with a $10 limit or a clothing item with a $50 limit.
The backpacks can have a price tag as high as $50 to qualify for the savings.
"Some things she's got to have to start school," she said.
But few children need corsets, corset laces and hunting vests for school, while highlighters, poster board and computer paper -- none of which are tax-free this week -- are becoming must-haves, said Wallen, the art teacher.
"They need to listen to what the children are using today," she said.
- Times staff writers Ryan Davis, Michael Sandler and Jeffrey S. Solochek contributed to this report.