Tax holiday safe for now as budget crisis looms

From the Santa Fe Newmexican.com - This weekend, back-to-school shoppers once again will be able to buy clothes and school supplies, including certain computer equipment, without paying state gross-receipts taxes. The annual Back-To-School Tax Holiday, now in its sixth year, is popular with consumers as well as retailers. "For our store, it's the biggest sales weekend in the month of August," Shawn Jaramillo, manager of JCPenney in the Santa Fe Place mall, said Thursday. But with a budget crunch forcing repeated cutbacks in government spending on programs, personnel and other costs, New Mexico lawmakers almost certainly will take a serious look at whether to continue the annual tax holidays. "Obviously, we'll be looking at all tax holidays, exemptions and loopholes," state Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, said Thursday. The Senate Finance Committee chairman and one of the Legislature's leading budget hawks, Smith said, "I haven't seen much in the way of proposed revenue enhancements, so we'll have to look at ways of closing the gap." The tax holiday is expected to cost state and local governments about $4.5 million in tax revenues, a state Taxation and Revenue Department spokesman said this week. That's about the same as in previous years. Read more

Tax holiday safe for now as budget crisis looms