As Mississippi’s annual sales tax holiday approaches just in time for back-to-school shopping, tax experts question the benefit of these events. Many experts believe the holidays to be no more than a political ploy to make public officials look good for the short-term while providing minimal tax relief and masking broader issues.

There are 17 states that usually have annual tax holidays. Mississippi’s begins at 12:01 a.m. July 31 and ends at midnight Aug. 1. According to the Mississippi Department of Revenue, items exempt from sales tax during the holiday are identical to previous years: clothing and footwear items less than $100 per item. Accessories, athletic equipment, school supplies and computers are not eligible.

Sales tax holidays are advertised as a way to give people a break from paying the sales tax, typically during the “back to school” shopping season. Superficially this sounds good, however, many tax and economic experts and officials believe the benefits are minimal. They say public officials cash in more on the good publicity than consumers cash in on savings.

According to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, sales tax holidays are poorly targeted and too temporary to meaningfully change the regressive nature of a state’s tax system.

“While ostensibly a tax break to help working families afford the costs of sending kids back to school, the holidays are more beneficial to affluent shoppers, who have the means to change the timing and amount of their purchases,” reads a publication from taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org. “And because consumers are mostly shifting (rather than increasing) their purchases, the holidays do little (if anything) to boost economic growth.”

According to ITEP and other sources, the rationale that sales tax holidays increase local consumer spending has not been demonstrated. Most “increases” in sales are shown to be the result of consumers’ shifting planned purchases.

Garrick Combs, executive director of the Brookhaven-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce, agreed the holiday might not cause a true economic boost, but people do still get an opportunity to save a little, and that is a good thing.

“It typically drives traffic to our stores and to our retailers,” he said. “Anytime our local consumers can save 7 percent on their purchases [it’s beneficial]. With people who need to send children or grandchildren back to school the timing usually works correctly.”

With no proof the holidays actually benefit consumers in a significant way, attention turns to what the states lose in revenue. According to tax policy center, sales tax revenues made up almost half of states’ budgets in 2013. ITEP reports in 2014, the holidays cost states at least $300 million.

Given tax holidays’ relatively neutral or unsubstantiated nature, Combs said he could see how their benefit could vary from place to place, being less beneficial in some, more than others.

“As far as the legislature I think they were trying to give the people a mechanism to save a little bit of money […],” Combs said. “I’m not sure if the main purpose is more of an economic boost […] but maybe their primary goal, or motivation, would be to give the people a brief tax break.

“A place like Brookhaven where we have a cluster of retail shops […] it probably does do us some positive good,” Combs said, “while other communities that might drive to Brookhaven to do their shopping, they probably don’t see those benefits.”

“We just don’t know if anyone really benefits from sales tax holidays,” says Matthew Gardner, ITEP’s executive director, “largely because there is no transparency or accountability. Of course politicians love the great PR, but with all the time they spend planning, promoting and implementing these events, they’d do better to focus on long-term solutions with real benefits for more taxpayers.”

But as long as a sales tax holiday is not being compared to beneficial tax reform or relief, then, especially for states with a very limited holiday, it seems to land somewhere in the “any little bit helps” rationale from the consumer standpoint. While folks may not be saving very much or buying much more to really benefit retailers, the city of Brookhaven at least does not lose very much on revenue either.

Brookhaven’s monthly sales tax revenue reflecting the holiday is not substantially less than surrounding months and is the sixth least lucrative of the year.

For the state, however, the issue is not as benign. The legislature does have the power to make reforms in tax policy to ease the burden of taxes that are harder on households that earn less. With that in mind, it is easy to understand why experts on tax policy and economics would take issue with politicians reaping PR benefits of a misrepresented and fruitless tax holiday.

According to ITEP, policy makers seeking to achieve greater tax fairness would do better to provide a permanent refundable low-income sales tax credit or Earned Income Tax Credit to offset the impact of the sales tax on low- and moderate-income taxpayers.

“Despite their political popularity, sales tax holidays are based on poor tax policy and distract policymakers and taxpayers from real, permanent and economically beneficial tax reform,” the taxpolicycenter.org report said. “Sales tax holidays introduce unjustifiable government distortions into the economy without providing any significant boost to the economy.”