Make laptops one of tax-exempt items during special "Weekend"

One of the architects of Iowa’s “Tax Freedom Weekend” is hoping to “jazz things up” in future years. State Representative Jamie Van Fossen of Davenport helped craft the five-year-old law. Folks shopping in Iowa don’t have to pay sales tax on clothes and shoes worth under a hundred bucks during a two-day “Tax Freedom Weekend” which is in its second day today. Van Fossen says it’s time to let folks buy a laptop tax-free during the “Tax Freedom” weekend. Van Fossen says he has a daughter heading off to college in the fall, and has noticed a lot of his daughter’s friends got cash for high school graduation to use to buy a laptop. Van Fossen says it would be perfect timing to let college-bound kids buy a laptop in the first weekend of August without paying sales tax on it. Van Fossen says he wanted to add something new to keep “Tax Freedom Weekend” exciting, and adding laptops to the listen of tax-exempt items would help kids who’re being strapped with ever-higher tuition. Van Fossen would also like to examine the items which are exempt from tax this weekend, as there continues to be confusion about which clothing and shoes can be purchased tax-free, and which cannot. The sales tax holiday will end at midnight tonight. Van Fossen says he’d also like to convince his fellow lawmakers to extend it to Sunday, too. Van Fossen, who is a republican, heads the Ways and Means tax-writing Committee in the Iowa House.