Tax-free shopping is the ultimate patriot act
By Beth Teitell
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Not to look a tax-free gift horse in the mouth, but the Massachusetts Sales Tax Holiday should be celebrated midweek, not on a Saturday, and employers should give workers the day off. With pay.
Because while shopping on my own time constitutes an activity done for pleasure, the very concept of the Sales Tax Holiday implies a civic duty, performed to boost the economy and keep the you-know-whos from winning.
This Saturday marks our state's first tax freedom day, and so far it's voluntary, but I wonder how much longer until the feds add a shopping requirement to the Patriot Act?
It will become like jury duty. You'll open your mailbox one day to find a summons ordering you to report to the CambridgeSide Galleria - or the Shops at the Prudential or Square One - at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday a month hence.
After passing through a metal detector, you'll assemble in the food court, and the ``court officer'' - a pierced, pink-haired Cinnabon employee - will flick on an instructional video explaining which items are tax free and which aren't - plasma-screen TVs and cars, respectively.
There'd be a lot of waiting - no cellphones, please - and then, under the state's One day/One sale system, you'd either be sent home, or empaneled and sent out into the mall to ``do some damage.''
Most requests to get out of service (made to the assistant manager on duty at the Gap) would be turned down, in an effort to have the shoppers mirror the makeup of society at large, although you know people would try:
Your honor, my credit cards are maxed out, I own eight pair of jeans that I'm not wearing, my closet can't hold any more shoes and my husband has prohibited me from bringing one more Yankee Candle into the home. I realize I'm wasting money if I don't shop today, but I simply can't afford any more savings.
Maybe I'm being too pessimistic. After all, we're doing this for America, or at least our little piece of it. Once I read that stores are bringing on extra employees and planning to expand their hours, I started to feel downright patriotic about the whole thing.
Now, excuse me while I cut out some Victory Coupons.
