VALDOSTA — For the first time since 2010, Georgia will not have a back-to-school sales tax holiday and this has local retailers worried.

Tim Nolan, Valdosta Mall general manager, and other business owners voiced concerns about the loss of the sales tax holiday to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce Economic Development and Taxation Committee at the Valdosta City Hall Annex building.

Nolan said the tax holiday is important to all Lowndes County businesses, not only in the mall. The holiday is more important to counties bordering other states that have a tax holiday. Without the holiday, he said shoppers will go running south to Florida, where there is a tax holiday.

Valdosta was the originator for a sales tax holiday for the State of Georgia back when it was first initiated in 2002. The holiday must be reintroduced every year for re-approval and was successfully approved every year except 2010 and now 2017.

“I don’t know what happened this year,” said Myrna Ballard, chamber president. “I guess we got comfortable and just assumed it would happen.”

But the state legislative session came and went with no new introduction of the holiday.

According to a 1997 study completed by the New York Department of Taxation and Finance, a sales tax holiday failed to stimulate new sales but rather shifts the timing of sales.

The study showed that during a clothing sales tax holiday, sales of exempt goods rose during the holiday but overall retail sales for the year did not increase. However, shoppers waited until the holiday to purchase exempted goods, thereby slowing down sales in the weeks prior to and following the holiday, according to Scott Drenkard and Joseph Henchman with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation.

Still, South Georgia retailers expect to feel the loss of the tax holiday this year.

Kacey Moore and Lakin Craft are the manager and assistant manager, respectively, at a shoe store in the Valdosta Mall. They said the lack of a sales tax holiday will be a big hit for their employees who work on commission.

“The commission is what they work for, and without those shoppers coming in to buy shoes, they won’t be able to get the extra money,” Craft said.

The holiday not only benefits businesses selling exempted goods such as shoes and clothing. It also helps surrounding businesses such as restaurants, said Margo Braski, Chick-fil-a owner. She said the fast-food restaurant sees an increase in customers during the holiday and will be greatly impacted without it.

State Rep. Jason Shaw attended the chamber meeting. He gave a broader perspective of why the sales tax holiday wasn’t approved.

Since the recession, he said they have had to basically sneak the holiday into being approved, but this year, they just didn’t have the votes. Shaw said the two main groups people look to for these types of budget items both reached the same conclusion that tax holidays don’t work.

“When you see those two groups agreeing, it usually carries a little weight, ’cause usually they’re on opposite ends,” Shaw said. “They came back and said it’s a terrible return on investment. It’s terrible for the taxpayers. So that’s what we have been up against.”

He asked for the business owners in the audience to tell other lawmakers what they told him. He said they should write letters and meet with the budget and policy makers to explain how it is impacting Valdosta-Lowndes retailers and residents.

“This is the kind of information we need to kind of sell it to our other border counties,” Shaw said. “We need your help for that.”

Thomas Lynn is a government and education reporter for The Valdosta Daily Times. He can be reached at (229)244-3400 ext. 1256