Posted by Andrea Durway
Back to School Sales Tax Holiday
Tax Free Weekend is here! From 12:01 a.m. on the first Friday in August until midnight on Sunday Certain back-to-school purchases, such as clothing, school supplies, computers, and other items as defined by the statute, are exempt from sales tax for this time period only. Consumers will be able to save 4.225 percent, which is usually tacked onto bills.
The sales tax exemption is limited to:
-
- Clothing – any article having a taxable value of $100 or less
- School supplies – not to exceed $50 per purchase
- Computer software – taxable value of $350 or less
- Personal computers – not to exceed $1,500
- Computer peripheral devices – not to exceed $1,500
- Graphing calculators – not to exceed $150
Qualifying Items
The State of Missouri defines items exempt during the sales tax holiday as:
“Clothing” – any article of wearing apparel intended to be worn on or about the human body including, but not limited to, disposable diapers for infants or adults and footwear. The term shall include but not be limited to, cloth and other material used to make school uniforms or other school clothing. Items normally sold in pairs shall not be separated to qualify for the exemption. The term shall not include watches, watchbands, jewelry, handbags, handkerchiefs, umbrellas, scarves, ties, headbands, or belt buckles; and
“Personal computers” – a laptop, desktop, or tower computer system which consists of a central processing unit, random access memory, a storage drive, a display monitor, a keyboard, and devices designed for use in conjunction with a personal computer, such as a disk drive, memory module, compact disk drive, daughterboard, digitalizer, microphone, modem, motherboard, mouse, multimedia speaker, printer, scanner, single-user hardware, single-user operating system, soundcard, or video card; and
“School supplies” – any item normally used by students in a standard classroom for educational purposes, including but not limited to, textbooks, notebooks, paper, writing instruments, crayons, art supplies, rulers, book bags, backpacks, handheld calculators, graphing calculators, chalk, maps, and globes. The term shall not include watches, radios, CD players, headphones, sporting equipment, portable or desktop telephones, copiers or other office equipment, furniture, or fixtures. School supplies shall also include graphing calculators valued at $150 or less and computer software having a taxable value of $350 or less.
