Posted: 10/20/2008 12:45:19 PM EDT
Thanksgiving Weekend!
No tax levied on gun sales
2-day relief after Thanksgiving
COLUMBIA --- South Carolina will allow tax-free gun sales the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving, and some gun owners say even the small savings that represents will be worth waiting for.
On a gun that costs $400, saving 7 percent on sales tax might encourage purchases, said Dan Spies, who leads the Lowcountry Patriots, a committee of the state chapter of the National Rifle Association.
"It might be enough if someone is already looking forward to making that purchase," he said. "Wait a week or two or a month, even. They may make that decision. $28? ... That's about eight gallons of gas."
What's less certain is whether the state's first tax holiday for guns results in purchases that otherwise wouldn't be made.
Amid a worrisome economy, sales have been sluggish for a variety of products at Port Royal Gun & Pawn.
That is, with one exception.
"It's pretty steady on the gun part," owner Charlotte Bell said. "But everything else is slow."
Still, she said it was hard to predict whether gun business would increase when the weapons go tax-free for two days.
Mr. Spies said the economic woes would probably factor into gun buyers' decisions, but only by forcing them to budget ahead of time.
"There are expenses, but people make plans if they know there's something they want to do," he said.
The legislation that enacted the tax holiday for handguns, rifles and shotguns was S.1143, which also created a monthlong sales tax holiday on certain energy efficient products, starting next October.
Gov. Mark Sanford had vetoed the bill, but lawmakers overrode it in June.
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/100908/met_478778.shtml |
|
