New York City and New York State are earning sales taxes on the merchandise, ticket sales and even the additional vendor items sold at the Garden.

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The Furniture Village chain - which, as a vendor of big-ticket durable goods, is particularly sensitive to consumer frugality - reported almost a thousand transactions at its 40 stores by mid-afternoon on Boxing Day, putting it on course to beat the 1, 200 sales it closed on the same day in 2011.

BBC: Boxing Day sales: Shoppers flock to stores