Back-to-school shoppers can expect bigger crowds and smaller prices on supplies and clothing this weekend.
Arkansas holds its annual sales tax holiday Saturday and Sunday. Shoppers receive a reprieve from state and local taxes, which typically approach 10 percent of purchases. The holiday covers some types of clothing that are less than $100 each, school supplies such as book bags and calculators, college textbooks and more.
State and local sales taxes
Add up state, county and city taxes to find out how much shoppers would save in each city.
Arkansas: 6.5 percent
Benton County: 1 percent
• Bentonville: 2 percent
• Rogers: 2 percent
• Siloam Springs: 2 percent
Washington County: 1.25 percent
• Fayetteville: 2 percent
• Springdale: 2 percent
Source: Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration
At a glance
Here are some of the items covered by the sales-tax holiday this weekend, which begins at midnight Saturday:
Clothing, less than $100 per item
• Coats and jackets
• Diapers
• Shoes
• Uniforms
Accessories, less than $50 per item
• Cosmetics
• Handbags
• Sun glasses
School supplies
• Binders
• Book bags
• Calculators
• Crayons, pens and pencils
• Notebooks
• Reference and textbooks
• Scissors
Source: Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration
"Especially for the teen retailers and the department stores, this is obviously one of the biggest times of the year," said David Faulkner, senior general manager at Pinnacle Hills Promenade in Rogers.
Foot traffic picks up by roughly 25 percent compared to other summer weekends, he said. Several stores around the area also plan to offer even deeper discounts of their own.
"It's a good thing for everybody," Faulkner said.
The state created the holiday in 2011 for the first weekend of August partly in response to similar tax breaks in surrounding states. Oklahoma and Missouri offer theirs this weekend as well.
Holidays such as Arkansas' could mean near $100 in savings for some families, according to the National Retail Federation. The group reported last month families with children from kindergarten to 12th grade across the country planned to spend almost $700 on back-to-school shopping on average, with the biggest chunk going to clothing.
College students and their families could spend $900 on average, the group said.
Even smaller purchasers plan to take advantage of the weekend, however.
Kalli Lum, an art major at the University of Arkansas, said she planned to buy her art supplies and notebooks this weekend for around $30. In the past several years her family often used the weekend to buy school supplies for family members in the Philippines.
"It's the cheapest time to get them," she said in the Arkansas Union, adding even a few dollars in savings can feel good.
Tax holidays still draw some skepticism. The state loses about $2 million in revenue from the holiday, based on a 2011 impact statement still used by the Department of Finance and Administration, said Drew Smith, assistant administrator for the sales and use tax division.
Holly Peppers, a Fayetteville mother of two school-age children, said the revenue lost was at least part of the reason state employees such as her husband went one recent year without pay raises.
"I don't really think it's the best way to help parents," Peppers said. Her family expects to spend only between $50 and $75 on school supplies, since they don't plan to buy much clothing, she said.
Marquita Den Herder, a mother of six from West Fork, said she dived into the tax-free weekend in years past, but has learned to take it slower. Buying warmer clothes when it's still hot doesn't make much sense when the kids are growing so quickly, she said. Some elementary schools in West Fork and other area towns also charge a flat fee -- $25, in West Fork's case -- for all the supplies students need, she said.
Tax holidays could have broader benefits if they spur more shopping or give people money to spend on other needs or wants, but most research has found the holidays simply push people to make several purchases all at once that would've been made anyway, said Mervin Jebaraj, assistant director for the University of Arkansas Center for Business and Economic Research in the Sam M. Walton College of Business.
"In terms of its economic impact, various studies conducted by a wide variety of people don't really find much economic impact at all," he said.
The holiday can bring some benefits to towns that border other states, but even then, the competing options have to be close together, Jebaraj said. Tulsa, Okla., and Springfield, Mo., each a two-hour drive away, likely wouldn't exert much of a pull, he said.
The state can't say whether the holiday leads to an actual spike in purchases because it doesn't track tax-exempt sales, Smith said.
Still, the tax break undeniably means dollars in the pockets of shoppers. Several university students are using it for their books, which can cost more than $400 for the semester, said Anntoneya Hill, textbook sales associate at the university's bookstore.
"Some people who are not sure whether they would buy the books from us or not, they actually will come in this weekend, just because it is an easy way to save money," she said. "A lot of the students have already placed preorders for tax-free weekend."
NW News on 08/05/2016