Back To School Sales Tax Holiday This Weekend in Alabama, Florida Next

August 6, 2010

Back to school shoppers can tax advantage of tax free savings beginning today in Alabama and next weekend in Florida.

Alabama — August 6-8

salestaxholiday.jpgAlabama’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.

salestaxholiday.jpgClothing 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.

Comments

7 Responses to “Back To School Sales Tax Holiday This Weekend in Alabama, Florida Next”

  1. bryan on August 18th, 2010 4:25 pm

    When they get rid of Howard Shell, Jim Staff, Webb Nall and all of that bunch maybe we can get something in here like a Target or Walmart. It’s pathetic when you can’t run down to the local walmart and purchase a printer cartridge etc. Whoever heard of a town our size that doesn’t have a walmart. We have a casino, but no walmart.

  2. se on August 6th, 2010 2:21 pm

    such a shame my town isnt participating. i work very hard for my money and i am a faithful shopper and supporter of the various businesses in atmore. Remember the shop atmore first theme? Sorry but i will be traveling to a nearby county this time. :-(

  3. huh on August 6th, 2010 1:54 pm

    I find it funny that Alabama is against Gambling but the only decent place in atmore is the Wind Creek area, and none of those jobs , entertainment, food, hotel , and more would be possible without gambling.

    I think in the end it will single handedly bring atmore up out of the depths

  4. rando on August 6th, 2010 11:48 am

    Atmore needs to sell all that river cane land going to waste to the porch tribe and let them develope it. A super target store would do well there i think.

  5. hummdinger on August 6th, 2010 9:31 am

    Won’t be doing any of my shopping in Atmore. Thanks for the heads up!

  6. Bob on August 6th, 2010 9:06 am

    Don’t be too hard on Atmore. They are just trying to get some extra money to pave some streets that have not been paved in 25 years and purchase some more redlights to slow down the traffic trying to get to Wind Creek.

  7. Resident on August 6th, 2010 8:33 am

    Just like greedy old Atmore not to take part.