Legislative Column for the Week of July 29, 2015

With school just around the corner, Missouri’s sales tax free holiday will be August 7-9th.  Designed to promote economic activity and give families a break on buying school supplies, the sales tax holiday is set at the state level, though local jurisdictions can opt out.

In 2015, the three-day holiday begins at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 7, and runs through Sunday, Aug. 9. Certain back-to-school purchases, such as clothing, school supplies, computers, and other items as defined by the statute, are exempt from sales tax for this time period only.
The following items are covered by the sales tax holiday:

• “Clothing” - any article of wearing apparel, including footwear, intended to be worn on or about the human body. The term shall include but not be limited to cloth and other material used to make school uniforms or other school clothing. Items normally sold in pairs shall not be separated to qualify for the exemption. The term shall not include watches, watchbands, jewelry, handbags, handkerchiefs, umbrellas, scarves, ties, headbands, or belt buckles.
• “School supplies” - any item normally used by students in a standard classroom for educational purposes, including but not limited to, textbooks, notebooks, paper, writing instruments, crayons, art supplies, rulers, book bags, backpacks, handheld calculators, chalk, maps, and globes. The term shall not include watches, radios, CD players, headphones, sporting equipment, portable or desktop telephones, copiers or other office equipment, furniture, or fixtures. School supplies shall also include computer software having a taxable value of three hundred fifty dollars or less.
• “Personal computers” - a laptop, desktop, or tower computer system which consists of a central processing unit, random access memory, a storage drive, a display monitor, and a keyboard and devices designed for use in conjunction with a personal computer, such as a disk drive, memory module, compact disk drive, daughterboard, digitalizer, microphone, modem, motherboard, mouse, multimedia speaker, printer, scanner, single-user hardware, single-user operating system, soundcard, or video card.

While local taxing jurisdictions can opt out, no 8th District jurisdictions have done so at this point. For more information regarding the sales tax holiday, please visit http://dor.mo.gov/business/sales/taxholiday/school/.