BOSTON — Major business remained unfinished ahead of the midnight deadline the State House Tuesday.
That includes a bill aimed at bringing back Massachusetts’ sales tax holiday.
This could be the first sales tax holiday in about three years and shoppers and retailers are itching to take advantage.
“We have been here in this unusual retail space for 40 years,” furniture maker Joe Van Benten said. “We’re a service business and we’re providing a quality product for people who want a little bit better thing than they can get at Ikea."
Van Benten told Boston 25 News is busiest time of year is September through December.
“Spring is also good … after they pay their taxes [people] are in a good mood and will spend some money on furniture,” he said.
The state’s annual sales tax holiday also puts customers in the mood to spend a little bit more for his handmade furniture. It’s why he and other local business owners have urged legislators to make the sales tax holiday a permanent event.
“We might get a month of work out of a sales tax holiday,” Van Benten explained.
Earlier this month, the house approved an amendment to an economic development bill that would suspend the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax on the weekend of Aug. 11-12 on most items that cost less than $2,500.
The sales tax holiday typically costs the state around $20 million, but the department of revenue says they’ve actually already collected more tax revenue than they anticipated this year -- about $1.2 billion.
Jon Hurst from the Massachusetts Retailers Association told Boston 25 News, “These are sales which otherwise we would not see because they would either go to someone else's economy (NH or the internet), or they wouldn't occur because they are impulse buys."
“As an alternative for reducing it back to five percent, it just seems like a modest effort and it could be kind of a shame to have it abandoned,” Van Benten said.
MORE: Lawmakers to hear calls for reinstating sales tax holiday