Sue Golmon is planning for big sales this weekend.

All the summer clearance is marked down in her Golmon’s OutletStore on Brookway Boulevard, she’s hosting a sale and some itemshave been cut down to the $10-$15 range. Add to those deals thesavings that will result from Mississippi’s second Sales TaxHoliday, and a shopper might be able to fill up big with the dimesout of the car’s ashtray.

“For our business, the Sales Tax Holiday fits perfect,” Golmonsaid. “We have some footwear and accessories, but we’re 98 percentclothing. We’ve got lots of things the kids are going to need to goback to school, and I think it will be a really good weekend.”

The tax holiday begins at the first tick of Friday at 12:01 a.m.and persists until midnight Saturday. During that 48-hour span,Mississippi’s 7 percent sales tax will be waived on clothing andother items people need to wrap up for fall and pack the kids offto school.

There a few rules to follow.

The tax exemption applies primarily to clothing and footwearworn next to the body and costing $100 or less. While a shopper’stotal haul can exceed $100, any single item that costs more thanthat amount is not eligible for the tax break.

The tax break applies mainly to clothing, defined in the lawenacting the holiday to include items like pants, shirts, blouses,dressed, coats, hats, undergarments and suits. Most shoes areeligible, but specialty footwear like skis and roller skates do notqualify.

Shoppers planning to take advantage of the Sales Tax Holidayshould do some research at the Mississippi Department of Revenue’swebsite at www.dor.ms.gov/secondsalestaxholiday.html. The breakdownof eligible and non-eligible items can be confusing.

For instance, baby clothes are eligible under the law, but babybibs are not. Cowboy boots are in, but hiking boots are out.Athletes can pick up football jerseys without paying the 7 percentsales tax, but not the pants. Most frustrating of all is thatback-to-school supplies are excluded from the list. Whilesuccessful tax holidays of neighboring states like Alabama includetax exemption for items like computers, backpacks, books,stationery and more, Mississippi’s event is almost 100 percentclothing. It also occurs just days before the school year begins,with most parents having already purchased needed schoolsupplies.

District 92 Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, said manylegislators wanted to add such school supplies to the legislation,but the changes were not included in the bill that passed in2009.

“If you have to buy your kid a laptop, 7 percent off would be abig deal,” she said. “It just never got out of committee.”

One change occurring this year is cities’ option to opt-out ofthe event. Fourteen cities around the state have decided to suspendthe Sales Tax Holiday and keep the 18.5 percent of the taxgenerated by every dollar in sales. Brookhaven will participate,and the closest opt-out towns are Fayette, Magnolia andMeadville.

“Shame on them,” Currie said of the opt-out cities. “People arehurting, and if they can’t have one weekend with no sales tax,they’re obviously not doing their budgets very well.”

District 53 Rep. Bobby Moak, D-Bogue Chitto, said cities thatopted out will likely be watching to see how any potential loss ofshoppers affects tax revenue.

“If I was a purchaser and I was going to make significantpurchases, I would go to the town with the least amount of tax,” hesaid. “The towns still in it will generate money.”

Moak said attempts to add more tax-free items to the list fellinto obscurity in 2010, when legislators focused almost exclusivelyon the state’s budget crisis. He’s not sure there will be time tostrengthen the Sales Tax Holiday in 2011, either.

“I think the big issues will be overall budgetary items,” hesaid. “It’s just according to if it gets lost in the shuffle.”

Yet another problem hampering the 2010 Sales Tax Holiday seemsto be a lack of enthusiasm. Revenue department spokesperson KathyWaterbury said her agency has no funding for advertising the eventand depends on media and retailers to get the word out.

Waterbury also said the revenue department has no way to tellwhat the impact of the event will be from 2009 to 2010 because fewretailers reported any data last year.

“We asked retailers to report to us what they exempted, but theywere not required to, and for the most part we did not getinformation from a lot of folks,” she said.

Regardless of problems or perceived problems, the Sales TaxHoliday is on, and smart shoppers can save a few dollars, providinga boost to both shopper and shop.

“Last summer it was kind of bleak, and the shopping was a shotin the arm,” Waterbury said.