Texas shoppers can save money on clothes and school supplies during the state’s sales tax holiday Friday-Sunday, Aug. 7-9.
State law exempts sales tax on qualified items - such as clothing, footwear, school supplies, and backpacks - priced below $100, saving shoppers about $8 on every $100 they spend.
The dates of the sales tax holiday and the list of tax-exempt items are set by the Texas Legislature.
“Since Tax-Free Weekend began in 1999, Texans have saved more than $2 billion on back-to-school supplies,” reads the Comptroller’s website.
“Qualifying items can be purchased tax-free from a Texas store or from an online or catalog seller doing business in Texas.”
The sales tax exemption applies only to qualifying items bought during the sales tax holiday.
The exemption applies to each eligible item sold for less than $100, and there is no limit to the number of qualifying items you can buy.
The exemption includes backpacks with wheels and messenger bags as long as they are under $100.
The following items do not qualify for exemption during the sales tax holiday:
items sold for $100 or more
clothing subscription boxes
specially-designed athletic activity or protective-use clothing or footwear
clothing or footwear rentals, alterations including embroidery, and cleaning services
items used to make or repair clothing, such as fabric, thread, yarn, buttons, snaps, hooks, and zippers
jewelry, handbags, purses, briefcases, luggage, umbrellas, wallets, watches, and other accessories
computers
software
textbooks
certain baggage items
“During the holiday you can buy qualifying items in-store, online, by telephone, mail, custom order, or any other means,” reads the Comptroller’s website.
“The purchase date is easy to determine when the purchase is made in-store but becomes more complicated with remote purchases.
“For example, if a purchaser enters their credit card information in an online shopping website on Sunday Aug. 9 at 5 p.m.to purchase qualifying school supplies, but the school supplies will not be shipped until Friday Aug. 14 and will not arrive until Tuesday Aug. 18, the purchase will still qualify for the exemption.
“However, if the charge to your credit card is declined by the payment processor at 11 p.m. Sunday Aug. 9, and the purchaser does not resubmit payment until Monday Aug. 10, the purchase is taxable,” adds the website.
Delivery, shipping, handling and transportation charges by the seller are part of the item’s sales price.
“Since clothing, backpacks and school supplies have to be less than $100 to qualify, you have to look at the item’s total sales price to determine if you can buy it tax free,” explains the website.
“If a delivery charge is billed per item, and an invoice has both exempt and taxable items, only the qualifying exempt item’s delivery charge is exempt.
If the delivery charge is a flat rate per package, and the amount charged is the same regardless of how many items are included in the package, the total charge can be attributed to any one of the items in the package.”
