This weekend is the other sales tax holiday — purchases of clothing, school supplies, and computers (up to $1,500) are exempt from state and local sales taxes.

Around here, it’s roughly a 10% discount.  Unfortunately, what I found in the previous iterations of this event is that retailers — local as well as online — tend to back off from their normal sales and discounts on the tax-free weekend, so the end result was a higher net cost for the items I needed.

Dell Computer is a prime example.  Last August, I had planned to buy a new desktop computer for Alpha, and had been watching prices for several weeks.  Dell changes prices every Thursday at midnight (as in the beginning of Thursday, not the end).  On the day before the tax holiday began, the $1200 system I’d been watching mysteriously went up to about $1500, meaning that I’d pay $183 MORE than it would have cost with tax added onto the sale price.

So, I just waited a couple more weeks, and paid the tax once it went on sale again.  Same thing for Levi’s jeans, notebook paper (which I usually buy on sale for 10 cents/pkg during the back-to-school sale), and several other items.

I’ll probably shop a little bit anyway, since I’d already promised Alpha to help her acquire some business apparel that she’ll need for her summer internship.  However, I’m not optimistic that I’ll end up saving much.

Anyone else have a different experience?