St. Charles follows suit with tax holiday

By ROBIN SHANNON
Published/Last Modified on Friday, July 11, 2008 5:27 PM CDT


Staff Reporter

HAHNVILLE – Following suit with a similar proposal passed in St. John Parish in June, the St. Charles Council and School Board have approved a local sales tax holiday for goods bought within the parish.

The council unanimously approved the ordinance, which will waive sales taxes on purchases up to $2,500. Like the St. John holiday, the tax break is scheduled for August 1 and 2 of this year, and will coincide with the state sales tax holiday scheduled for that weekend.

St. Charles Public Information Officer Renee Allemand said the proposal waives the 3 percent tax collected by the school board, as well as the 2 percent tax levied by the council. She said the statewide holiday eliminates the 4 percent tax regularly collected by Louisiana government.

Allemand said the holiday applies to all consumer purchases of tangible personal property except automobiles and meals at restaurants. She said the timing of the holiday was designed to give residents a bit of a break as they begin to purchase school supplies for kids heading back to school, and hurricane materials in anticipation of the height of hurricane season.

The holiday in St. John was initially proposed by St. John School Board President Gerald Keller. He said the school board agreed to cease collection of its 2.25 percent tax in May of this year. The St. John council followed suit with their 2.25 percent tax, and St. John Sheriff Wayne Jones also agreed to do away with his office’s .24 percent tax for two days.

Allemand said that since the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office does not collect a sales tax, no endorsement was necessary.

In other action from the St. Charles meeting, the council unanimously approved Parish President V.J. St. Pierre’s appointment of Grant M. Dussom as the parish’s new finance director.

Allemand said Dussom is a New Orleans native and a graduate of Loyola University New Orleans. He was previously an audit consultant with Deloitte & Touche LLP of New Orleans, an Audit and Enterprise Risk Services firm, where he gained auditing experience working with energy, manufacturing, banking and governmental related companies.

Comments


Comment posters are responsible for the opinions they express and the accuracy of the information they provide. We urge comment writers to treat this as a public forum where manners matter. We encourage a collegial, non-insulting tone. All readers comments must be approved by our staff before posting to the Web site. Be aware, in accordance with the Communications Decency Act and provisions upheld in judicial appeal, that you are responsible for comments posted on this Web site. The L'Observateur is not liable for messages from third parties.

DO NOT POST:
* Potentially libelous statements or damaging innuendo.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults or threats.
* The use of another person's real name to disguise your identity.
* Comments unrelated to the story.

Opinions, advice and all other information expressed in The L'Observateur reader comments represent the individual's own views and not necessarily those of L'Observateur. L'Observateur does not endorse and is not responsible for statements, advice or opinions offered by anyone other than authorized L'Observateur spokespersons.

Thank you for your comments!



Write a Comment

Reader Comments

The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of .

Submit a Comment

We encourage your feedback and dialog, all comments will be reviewed by our Web staff before appearing on the Web site.
(optional)
   



Contact Us

Click here for e-mail
Phone: (985) 652-9545