Why is the Texas Comptroller smiling with a crazed look on her face? It’s Tax-Free Weekend!
The mall was a madhouse this afternoon. It is because of the Tax-Free Weekend. That is when Texas consumers get to stiff the state on its sales tax for a lot of different items. I say different items. That does not mean every item.
For instance:
You can buy a belt with a buckle attached without sales tax but you get charged the tax if you only buy a buckle. One may purchase raincoats and ponchos (real or Sears either one) without being taxed but you got to pay that pesky tax if you buy rubber work boots or waders. There is no tax for baby clothes, dresses, jeans, jackets, pants or trousers. But if you want to buy buttons or zippers just in case the cheap, crappy excuse for a button on the garment you buy fails once you get it home, you will pay taxes for it. And so on.
This Tax-Free Weekend started in 1999. I don’t know whether Texas Comptroller (our state’s tax collector) Carole Keeton Rylander McClellan Strayhorn Foghorn Leghorn Desi Lucy Arnaz de Zavalla invented this weekend-long moratorium in the state but I’m sure she will be happy to take the credit for it even if she didn’t. Strayhorn, as we’ll caller her here and mother of my favorite White House press secretary Scott McClellan, is running for the Republican nomination for governor against Rick “The Coifmeister” Perry.
Strayhorn should be playing this tax-free puppy for all it’s worth this weekend while His Hairness begins to finally learn a physics lesson about immovable objects during this second — and no more successful than the first — special legislative session.
It’s nice to know Texans are out saving $8 for every $100 they spend this weekend. In the meantime we also get to pick up the $1.7 million tab for the special session while the legislature does nothing. But hey to the Lege, it’s OPM, Other People’s Money. That’s even better than saving a few bucks.