Starting Sunday, Pennsylvania will offer a sales tax holiday on purchases of home computers and accessories for one week in an effort to encourage more consumers to buy computers for use at home.

The tax holiday, dubbed the "Tax free PC Plus" week will last through Aug. 12 and is timed to coincide with the unofficial start of back-to-school shopping.

The state is offering this deal to consumers: purchase a computer for the home or accessory like a printer or scanner and be exempt from paying the state's 6 percent sales tax. The deal also applies to Internet access devices such as WebTV or to get on the Internet. The tax waiver would amount to $60 on a $1,000 computer.

The waiver applies to most computer-related products bought for personal use at retail stores, over the phone or Internet or through the mail from Sunday through Aug. 12. Shipping and handling fees are also tax free.

"PC customers will have the opportunity to buy full computers or add ons, sales tax free," said Gov. Tom Ridge who proposed the idea. "This includes items that will, for many, expand the power of their home computer, including access to the Internet."

Items that will be tax free include disk drives, random access memory, storage drives, data storage devices, memory modules, CD-ROM drives, disks, memory upgrades, printers, scanners, monitors, keyboards, mouse, microphones, video cards, sound card, digitizers. The tax waiver doesn't apply to items purchased for business use or for computer leasing, rental, repairs or alterations.

The state is pairing up with retailers to extend the holiday's buying power.

Staples, SAM's CLUB, Best Buy, Circuit City, Hewlett Packard and Gateway are among major retailers and computer manufacturers offering discounts on computers and equipment on their own to give consumers an opportunity for further savings during the week, state revenue officials said.

The sales tax holiday was authorized as part of the new state budget enacted in June. A second tax waiver for computers and accessories is scheduled for Feb. 17-24, around the President's Day holiday.

Pennsylvania offered its first tax holiday last year on home computer purchases alone. This year the range of items covered has been expanded to include the parts and Internet access.

The Ridge administration hopes the tax holiday will boost home use of computers. Pennsylvania is still below the national average of 51 percent for home use of computers and 41.5 percent for Internet access.

Pennsylvania's averages are at 42.1 percent and 26.2 percent respectively.

"Nearly every type of job today requires a degree of computer competency," said Sam McCullough, secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development. "But to gain and sharpen computer skills, people need to have easy access to computers and, ideally, even have them in their homes."

The Revenue Department estimates the state lost $8.3 million worth of sales tax revenue due to last year's computer tax holiday