Idaho’s Girl Scouts are appealing to the House Revenue & Taxation Committee this morning to remove the state’s 6 percent sales tax from Girl Scout cookies; Idaho is one of just two states that taxes the cookie sale, taking 22 cents from every $3.75 box of cookies. Samantha Ward, a senior at Centennial High School who has been a Girl Scout since kindergarten, told the panel how the program allowed her to go on a backpacking trip to Yosemite and a trip to Switzerland, where she met Girl Scouts and Girl Guides from all over the world. “I like to use my experiences to help girls go out and chase their dreams, no matter how big,” she told the committee.

Allison Jones, 13, an 8^thgrader, told the committee, “Girl Scouts has taught me several useful skills through the cookie program. One out of many of them is reliable goals. … Every year in Girl Scouts, I have set my cookie goal higher, because I felt more confident with going out and talking to people. This year my cookie goal is 400 boxes.”

Connie Miller, board president of Silver Sage Girl Scouts and president and CEO of a local credit union, told the panel she grew up in a poor family. “I was nobody at school, I was bullied,” she said. “I found my place in girl scouting.” Her six siblings never finished high school, she said, “they all dropped out. But it was my senior Girl Scout leader who told me, ‘You are going to finish high school, you are going to go to college.’ It was such a tremendous impact on me.”

When committee members questioned why the Girl Scouts don’t just raise the price of a box of cookies to cover the tax, they said they’d sell fewer at a higher price – particularly for low-income girls, who could sell fewer to their friends and families.