Retailers Call for Repeal of 10% Tax on Luxury Items

Businesses specializing in the sale of costly cars and boats are being pushed into financial decline by the nation’s tax on luxury products, witnesses told a Republican congressional panel Monday.

“We are in jeopardy,” William C. Parsons, president of Palmer Johnson yacht builders of Sturgeon Bay, Wis., told members of the House Republican Study Committee.

“Our clients can afford to pay the 10% luxury tax; they simply are choosing not to,” Parsons said. “If nothing happens to reverse this trend, layoffs will be required.”

Parsons was among about a dozen witnesses who are seeking the repeal of the 1990 tax, which places a 10% levy on a portion of the price of expensive boats, jewelry, cars, furs and private airplanes. For boats, it applies to those costing more than $100,000.