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Back To School Savings: Sales Tax Holidays In Alabama And Florida
July 30, 2010
Both Alabama and Florida have upcoming school sales tax holidays with back to school tax savings on school supplies and clothing.
Alabama — August 6-8
Alabama’s sales tax holiday will be August 6-8. However, Escambia County, Atmore and Brewton will not be participating. In Atmore and Brewton, shoppers will save the state’s four percent tax, but still pay the county and city tax rate. Flomaton will participate, with back to school purchases in Flomaton exempt from the state and city tax, but not the one percent county tax.
For complete details on exempt items in Alabama,click here (pdf).
Florida — August 13-15
In Florida, the school sales tax holiday will be the following weekend, August 13-15. It will be the first school sales tax holiday in the Sunshine State since 2007.
In general, Florida’s sales tax holiday will apply to “the sale of books, clothing, wallets, or bags, including handbags, backpacks, fanny packs, and diaper bags, but excluding briefcases, suitcases, and other garment bags, having a sales price of $50 or less, or on sales of certain school supplies having a sales price of $10 or less for the period beginning 12:01 a.m., August 13, 2010, and ending at midnight, August 15, 2010,” according to the Florida Department of Revenue.
For complete details on exempt items in Florida, click here (pdf).
Florida defines books as “a set of printed sheets bound together and published in a volume.” Newspapers, magazines, other periodicals and audio books are not books and will be taxable during the holiday.
Clothing is defined as any article of wearing apparel, including all footwear (except skis, swim fins, roller blades and skates) intended to be worn on or about the body. Clothing does not include watches, watchbands, jewelry, umbrellas, handkerchiefs or sporting equipment.
School supplies include pens, pencils, erasers, crayons, notebooks, notebook filler paper, legal pads, binders, lunch boxes, construction paper, markers, folders, poster board, composition books, poster paper, scissors, cellophane tape, glue, paste, rulers, computer disks, protractors, compasses and calculators.
The state also has a rule about where purchases can be made or, more importantly, where they can’t be made.
For example, eligible items are not exempt from sales tax if purchased at a theme park or entertainment complex. So, a T-shirt with a cartoon character on the front purchased at Disney World would be taxable, although a similar T-shirt purchased at a department store would be exempt.
Eligible items also lose their tax-exempt status if purchased at a public lodging establishment, aka a hotel, motel, resort, beach cottage, or airport.
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