Girl Scout Cookies and the Snack Tax

State sales taxes often exempt food purchased for at-home consumption to help relieve regressivity. However, that exemption causes substantial loss of revenue. Furthermore, some people question the nutritional value of certain items exempted under the food label and doubt the wisdom of losing revenue in a tax structure to provide relief to such purchases. In difficult fiscal times in the early 1990's, a few states sought additional revenue by narrowing the food exemption, particularly by removing some of these questionable categories from the exempt list. These new laws and their enforcement have produced policy problems testing the resolve of the legislators and tax administration.

In the 1991 legislative session, Maine passed a package of tax changes designed to increase revenues by $300 million annually. (Total tax collections in fiscal 1990 were $1,560.9 million.) thee changes included higher income taxes, an increase in the state sales and use tax rate from 5 to 6 percent, and a revision to remove snack food from the "sales of grocery staples" category, which was then exempt from the state sales and use tax. The new law was estimated to yield $10 million annually. The new law taxed snack food, as defined by the legislature.

14-C. "Snack food." Snack food means any item that is ordinarily sold for consumption without further preparation or that requires for preparation other than combining the item with a liquid; that may be stored unopened without refrigeration, except that ice cream, ice milk, frozen yogurt, and sherbet are snack foods; that is not generally considered a major component of a well-balanced meal; and that is not defined in this section as a grocery stable. "Snack food" includes, but it not limited to, corn chips, potato chips, processed fruit snacks, fruit rolls, fruit bars, popped popcorn, pork rinds, pretzels, cheese sticks and cheese puffs, granola bars, breakfast bars, bread sticks, roasted nuts, doughnuts, cookies, crackers, pastries, toaster pastries, croissants, cakes, pies, ice cream cones, marshmallows, marshmallow creme, flavored powdered liquid drink mixes or drinks, ice cream sauces, pudding, beef jerky, meat bars and dips. (36 Maine Revised Statues 1752 [1992].

The lawmakers soon dissevered that the expansion of the sales and use tax base had some unexpected consequences, particularly with he regard to the finances of Girl Scouts. Two councils, the Abnake and Kennebec, served about 19,500 girls in Maine, and 60 to 65 percent of their revenues came from cookie sales. Because neither council was qualified to purchase inventory for resale as a registered reatiler, and then charge sales tax on each transaction, the councils now had to pay tax on their cookie purchases. That amounted to around $58,000 or almost 2 percent of cookie revenue (they paid tax on the wholesale price of about 80 cents per box).

The two councils responded differently to the new tax. Abnaki raised its cookie prices from $2.25 to $2.50, but sales fell 7 percent from the prior year. Kennebec lacked sufficient time to react, so it had to absorb about $40,000 in cookie losses. However, neither council thought the new tax was fair. Jo Stevens, executive director of the Abnaki Council, voiced the general view: "We're not selling groceries. We're raising charitable contributions."Of course, the problem for sales tax policy was, indeed, because they weren't selling groceries.

The Joint Taxation Committee was generally sympathetic. Its co-chair, Senator Stephen Bost said, "We had not intended as a committee to include... Girl Scouts in the snack tax." However, proposed legislation to exempt Girl Scout and related organizations (including the pre-popped popcorn sold by Boy Scouts) would cause a revenue loss of around $175,000 annually, and the state had no clear way to name it up. (Incidentally, candy had been taxed for some time, but candy sales by school groups and parent-teacher organizations are exempt.)

Discussion Question:

What should Maine do? Here are some options (1) do nothing - the tax is working as it should; (2) direct the Bureau of Taxation to rewrite the institution; (3) repeal the snack tax; (4) exempt sales and purchases by the Girl Scouts and similar organizations; (5) require the Girl Scouts to register as retail merchants, buy their cookies using the resale exemption, and collect sales tax on their cookie sales; and (6) exempt sales and/or purchases by all youth or charitable organizations. (You may think of other possibilities.) Use the standards for revenue policy evaluation (yield, fairness, economic effect, and collectability) to test options and provide a recommendation. Explain which approach is most consistent with the logic of sales taxation. Which parties would have an interest in the eventual outcome of the discussion? What is your overall view of the snack tax, without respect to the Girl Scout issue?