Sales tax holiday may help getting ready for new school year

Nevada Daily Mail

If you are getting children ready to head back to the classroom in a few weeks, Nevada, Vernon County and the state of Missouri are trying to make the necessary purchases a little less painful.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday -- known as the annual Back to School Sales Tax Holiday -- allows parents and others to shop without being assessed sales tax on selected purchases,

In Nevada, the sales tax holiday will reduce the cost of qualifying merchandise by 7.725 percent from the regular cost including the sales tax.

In some cases the tax holiday can impact the business at local merchants.

"In conjunction with the Sidewalk Sale, it works," said Janet Palmer at the Dress Code in Nevada.

The annual downtown Sidewalk Sale will be held Aug. 1-3.

Dana Cavener at Cavener's Library and Office said since their business is largely business-to-business they do not usually see any impact on their business.

At Belles & Beaus, Beth Steward said that she has not noticed an impact in the past and will see if that changes with the new store and location.

While the Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday can save consumers some money, it also costs city's and counties its sales tax revenue for those four days. With that in mind, a number of Missouri counties and towns opt out of this each year. According to the Missouri Department of Revenue's website this year 49 of Missouri's 115 counties and about 155 towns and cities have decided to opt out of the sales tax holiday, including Cedar, Dade, Greene, Jasper and Newton counties and the towns of El Dorado Springs, Branson, Joplin and Springfield.

Nevada chose to opt out of the sales tax holiday when it was first tried in 2004 and in 2005 decided to participate.

According to a story in the Aug. 21, 2003, Nevada Daily Mail the city council voted to opt out of the tax holiday at the recommendation of then city manager Craig Hubler, who told the council that the city had voluntarily rolled back the property tax levy, cutting the overall property tax by about $38,000. And that other states that tried sales tax holidays had significant losses. He told the council that it would be worth considering in the future after the effect on local businesses is known.

"The annual sales tax holiday is a perfect opportunity to get some or all of your back-to-school shopping under way and save some money," said John Mollenkamp, acting director of the Missouri Department of Revenue. "When local governments participate in the holiday, the savings can add up to as much as 8 or 9 percent."

According to information from the Department of Revenue: The sales tax will not be charged on the following items during the holiday:

* Clothing that does not have a value of more than $100. Eligible clothing includes standard items of apparel worn on or about the body, and includes footwear. It also includes material to make school uniforms or other school clothing. It does not include accessories such as watches, jewelry, handbags, handkerchiefs, umbrellas, scarves, ties, headbands and belt buckles.

* School supplies, not exceeding $50 per purchase, that are used in a standard classroom for educational purposes. School supplies include textbooks, notebooks, paper, pens, pencils, crayons, art supplies, rulers, book bags, backpacks, handheld calculators, chalk, maps and globes. School supplies do not include compact disc players, headphones, sporting equipment, portable telephones, copiers or other office equipment.

* Personal computers that don't cost more than $3,500 and computer peripheral devices that don't exceed $3,500. A personal computer can be a laptop, desktop or tower computer system which consists of a central processing unit, random access memory, a storage drive, display monitor, keyboard and other related devices. Peripheral devices include items such as a disk drive, memory module, CD drive, microphone, modem, motherboard, mouse, speakers, printer, scanner, sound card or video card. Computer software is considered a school supply and is free from sales tax if its value is less than $350.

The sales tax exemption is commonly referred to as the Back-to-School Sales Tax holiday because it occurs near the beginning of the traditional school year for most students. Any person -- including those who live outside of the state of Missouri -- who makes a qualified purchase may participate in the holiday. An individual does not have to be a student or be purchasing for a student to participate. More information and a list of cities, counties and districts that have opted out of the holiday can be accessed at Missouri Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday 2013.

Follow the Missouri Department of Revenue on Twitter @MoRevenue.