Starting Friday, Mainers will be required to pay state sales tax on hundreds of food and beverage products that previously were tax-exempt, including fruit gummies, chocolate chips, marshmallows, potato chips, dips, beef jerky, sports drinks, granola bars, trail mix, cookies, pastries, ice cream, and precooked frozen cakes, pies and sandwiches.
The broad expansion of taxable grocery items is part of a two-year, $6.7 billion budget plan lawmakers approved in June, which contains modest property and income tax cuts. In exchange for those cuts, it retains the existing 5.5 percent sales tax for non-exempt grocery items and 8 percent tax for prepared meals, while making more products subject to those taxes. State officials have estimated that the change in sales tax policy will generate an additional $97 million in revenue in the 2017 fiscal year.
Major retailers said they are ready to implement the new taxes Friday.
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