Grab some special school – and outside of school – deals with Tax-Free Weekend

THE WOODLANDS, TX – All this weekend, parents and other shoppers can enjoy savings on hundreds of items that can be purchased without paying sales tax. The origin of Tax-Free Weekend was in Texas in 1999 when legislators approved Senate Bill 441, a piece of legislation authored by a state senator from Houston, Rodney Ellis, who was also a member of Houston City Council and is currently Commissioner for Harris County Precinct 1.

The Texas State Comptroller controls the program, which encourages all taxpayers to support Texas businesses while saving money on tax-free purchases of most clothing, footwear, school supplies and backpacks (sold for less than $100) during the weekend. Qualifying items can be purchased tax free from a Texas store or from an online or catalog seller doing business in Texas. In most cases, you do not need to give the seller an exemption certificate to buy qualifying items tax free.

This year’s sales tax holiday begins Friday, Aug. 9, and goes through midnight Sunday, Aug. 11. The sales tax exemption applies only to qualifying items you buy during the sales tax holiday. Items you buy before or after the sales tax holiday do not qualify for exemption, and there is no tax refund available.

During the event, qualifying items include many examples of clothing, footwear, school supplies, face masks, and backpacks. Special purchases allowed with conditions met include school supplies purchased using a business account (exemption certificate required), layaways, special orders, rain checks, online purchases, and telephone orders.

During the holiday you can buy qualifying items in-store, online, by telephone, mail, custom order, or any other means. The sale of the item must take place during the specific period. The purchase date is easy to determine when the purchase is made in-store but becomes more complicated with remote purchases – the credit card payment must be processed within the envelope of the weekend, regardless of when the order is placed. If, for example, the payment is processed on Monday, the purchase does not qualify and is taxable. Addition, shipping and delivery charges count as part of the cost of the items, and 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.

If you pay sales tax on qualifying items during the sales tax holiday, you can ask the seller for a refund of the tax paid. The seller can either grant the refund or provide their customer with Form 00-985, Assignment to Right to Refund, which allows the purchaser to file the refund claim directly with the Comptroller’s office.

A complete list of eligible and ineligible items, along with requirements in special cases, can be found on the State Comptroller’s website at https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/publications/98-490/.

If this weekend proves to be too difficult to shop for, Woodlands Online should point out that the total of state, county and city sales tax rates in The Woodlands add up to 8.25 percent, which means if you simply shop around for 10 percent off sales, you’d save even more.