- WASHINGTON, DC--The National Retail Federation today told the Senate that economic stimulus legislation under consideration fails to do enough for consumers, and repeated its call for a series of national sales tax holidays intended to jumpstart spending.
- “While the legislation currently under consideration includes a number of provisions designed to produce long-term economic growth and job creation, we are extremely concerned that it does not do enough to immediately stimulate consumer spending or to preserve the tens of millions of jobs that consumer spending supports,” NRF Senior Vice President Steve Pfister said. “With consumer spending representing two-thirds of GDP, it is difficult if not impossible to foresee an improvement to overall economic growth until consumers regain confidence and resume spending.”
“Before concluding your deliberations on stimulus legislation, we urge you to include measures that would provide an immediate and substantial boost to consumer confidence and spending,” Pfister said. “We believe national sales tax holidays would be a powerful and cost-effective tool to achieve that goal. Long-term economic stimulus is critically important, but immediate economic stimulus is absolutely essential.”
“Retailers’ considerable experience with sales tax holidays has shown that they provide a substantial inducement for people to shop,” Pfister said. “The increased sales resulting from these holidays would provide a direct infusion of liquidity into the economy, benefitting consumers as well as cash-starved states, which have seen a precipitous decline in sales tax revenues. Furthermore, sales tax holidays would help preserve and create significant numbers of jobs throughout interrelated sectors of the economy including the retail, manufacturing and transportation industries.”
Pfister’s comments came in a letter to members of the Senate, which is currently debating amendments to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the package of economic stimulus measures passed by the House last week.
NRF in December proposed that a series of national sales tax holidays be held during March, July and October 2009, each lasting 10 days including two weekends. Tax-free treatment would apply to all tangible goods subject to state sales tax except tobacco and alcohol, ranging from retail merchandise and restaurant meals to automobiles. The federal government would reimburse the 45 states that have sales taxes for the lost revenue, and would provide the five states without a sales tax (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon) with comparable revenue based on population.
NRF estimates that the proposed tax holidays could save consumers nearly $20 billion, or almost $175 for the average family, based on the $236 billion in sales tax collected nationwide each year. Beyond consumers saving money on already-expected purchases, retailers have reported sales increases of 35-40 percent from state-level tax holidays that have become popular in recent years.
The NRF proposal comes as the retail industry is facing one of its most difficult years on record. NRF released its annual retail sales forecast last week, predicting that sales will drop 2.5 percent during the first half of 2009 and end the year down 0.5 percent from 2008’s already-low levels. That would be the first year-to-year drop since NRF began forecasting results in 1995. In addition, the retail industry lost 579,000 jobs in 2008 and is continuing to see job losses this year.
The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, chain restaurants, drug stores and grocery stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.6 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 24 million employees - about one in five American workers - and 2008 sales of $4.6 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations. www.nrf.com
