Sales Tax Holiday begins today

Virginia’s Sales Tax Holiday is August 5-7. Here’s more info from the Governor’s Office.

Virginians Can Save Money During Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday
– This Year’s Exemption Period Takes Place Aug. 5-7 –

RICHMOND – Governor Bob McDonnell announced today that Virginia’s sixth annual back-to-school sales tax holiday will take place Aug. 5-7. During this three-day period, many school supplies and clothing items will be exempt from the state and local sales tax, easing the financial burden of families as they prepare to send their children back to school.

As in past years, a variety of school supplies, including notebooks, pens, binders, calculators, paints and crayons, will be tax-free as long as each item costs $20 or less. Most clothing items and footwear will also be exempt from the 5 percent sales tax as long as they are priced at $100 or less each. There is no limit on the number of items you can purchase tax-free as long as each item qualifies. Lists of eligible items, along with guidelines and frequently asked questions for both consumers and retailers, are posted on the Department of Taxation website at http://www.tax.virginia.gov/.

The sales tax holiday is available to anyone – not just those preparing for school – and all Virginia retailers who sell the exempt products must participate. During the sales tax holiday, retailers may also choose to save taxpayers even more by opting to pay the sales tax themselves on items that are not exempt under the guidelines.

“When the General Assembly unanimously approved this sales tax holiday in 2006, it did so with the intent of giving families preparing for school a needed tax break,” said Governor McDonnell. “Returning to class is an exciting time for students, but it can also be a stressful time for their parents. Saving 5 percent on their purchases is not a great deal, but every bit helps in this struggling economy. I urge all Virginians to go out and save money, while supporting our retail community.”

The 2011 holiday is expected to save Virginians an estimated $4.3 million in sales tax this year. Virginia also holds sales tax holidays for Energy Star- and WaterSense-qualified products in October and for hurricane preparedness in May.

Thankfully, it was just another day in Blacksburg

Not again. That was the thought going through minds all across the Commonwealth on Thursday morning when news broke that the Virginia Tech campus was on lockdown because of a suspected man with a gun.

Not again.

And when the dust settled and campus officials spoke to the media, we did not have a repeat of that fateful day in April of 2007.

According to WDBJ7:

It all started around 9 a.m. when three campers attending summer camp reported seeing a white man holding what they believed was a gun in the vicinity of Deitrick dining hall or New Residence Hall East. The three teenage girls described the man as a white male, six feet tall, light brown hair, wearing a blue and white striped shirt, gray shorts and brown sandals. The girls reported the man did not have facial hair or glasses. Early Thursday police released a composite sketch based on the description.

After several hours of searching no sign of the individual was found and the campus alert was lifted. Local law enforcement remains on campus Thursday evening in marked and unmarked vehicles.

Were the girls mistaken in their report? Police certainly felt it was credible enough to take seriously. We may never know if they were mistaken or if the campus alert scared off another crazed gunman.

When the shootings took place in 2007, family and friends clung to the internet and the news outlets for any shred of information. The first reports of casualties came in, and sickeningly with each update the numbers increased. I remember watching the agony of our office intern as well as my high school aged son trying to reach their friends. In the end 32 students and faculty were dead in one of the most horrific shooting attacks in our nation’s history.

Virginia Tech received much criticism for their response in that crisis. While you can never adequately prepare for such an event, questions remained as to whether the university alert system was adequate and whether officials acted in a timely manner. Families wanted to sue. The U.S. Department of Education levied a fine against Virginia Tech, without even visiting the campus in their supposed “investigation.”

So, this time, the text messages went out. The sirens sounded. The buildings were shut down. Classes were cancelled for the remainder of the day.

From inside, one employee at Virginia Tech told Facebook friends that he and his coworkers were locked inside their offices for four hours, receiving text message updates every thirty minutes.

After the 2007 event, Second Amendment activists stated that had one of the students or professors been armed, they may have been able to stop the shooter. That’s pure speculation but activists point to the 2002 shooting at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy. In that case, the gunman there killed three people, but was then stopped by two students who were able to obtain their personal firearms.

The gun rights argument is for another thread. But did Virginia Tech overreact? Once could ask if this is what an overly litigious, anti-gun culture looks like in real life.

Given the history and the criticism, campus officials and local law enforcement had no choice but to take the measures they did on Thursday. They’d been criticized for failing before. They couldn’t let that happen again.

Thankfully, it didn’t.

Cross posted at Bearing Drift.