In our next edition of our nascent What If? series, we take a look at a target of the fiscal hounds. Since the dawn of time, sales tax was only collected on internet sales if the vendor had a physical presence in the state of the buyer. As many state governments ponder how they will get their budget back into the black, after plummeting home values and real estate tax revenues, collecting sales tax on online purchases seems to be a popular idea.

What would happen if sales tax were collected on online sales?

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This page covers the 2010 Sales Tax Holiday Schedule.

Sales tax holidays have gained in popularity in recent years, in part because of the economy but mostly because everyone wants to get a good deal, and more and more states are starting to get in the fun. It will be interesting to see what states do this year as many are seeing budget shortfalls as a result of sagging home prices. It’s a trade-off between boosting the economy and surrendering tax revenue (and politicians voting against very popular sales tax holidays!), it’ll be interesting to see as we start to near the usual “full swing” period of sales tax holidays.

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This page covers the 2009 Sales Tax Holiday Schedule. Here is the list of the 2010 Sales Tax Holidays.

With the economy in a funk and consumers looking to save as much as they can, one of the best ways to shave several percentage points off your purchase is to wait until a sales tax holiday! States started having sales tax holidays several years ago and discovered that a lot of people were taking advantage of them. It’s the perfect marriage of consumer saving money and their representatives earning brownie points for giving them that opportunity. Despite the numerous reports of state budget shortfalls, many of these sales tax holidays are still in effect. I don’t expect to see many state legislators introducing bills canceling “long” standing sales tax holidays!

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This page covers the 2008 Sales Tax Holiday Schedule. Here is the latest 2010 Sales Tax Holiday Schedule.

Since many states are having their first tax-free period (for hurricane preparedness) this weekend, I thought it would be helpful if someone did a recap of all the tax sales across the nation (I’m unaware of a similar list for 2008 existing anywhere), so I did searches of all the states and collected the information on any sales tax holidays they are having. Many states have scaled back the tax-free program because of projected tax revenue shortfalls (Florida canceled its spring tax sale for hurricane preparedness supplies and shortened its typically ten day school supply tax-free period to seven days) but many still have some sort of program in place.

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