Hi, I’m Bette Hochberger, CPA, CGMA, and on today’s Tax Tip Tuesday, we’re going to talk about the upcoming back-to-school sales tax holiday. This is a very cool thing we do in Florida. It’s been going on for years where school-related supplies are going to be sales tax exempt for going back to school.

This is going to start this coming Saturday, July 31st, and it runs through August 9th; and basically, there’s a list of qualifying items, mostly stuff you would expect to need to go back to school: pens, pencils, paper, or staplers, like all that kind of good school stuff. And it is exempt from sales tax, which is a nice break for families, right? But, unfortunately, kid’s school supplies are expensive; especially if you have many kids, you have to pay a lot of money. Some things you might not realize are the books and pencils kind of stuff, it also applies to clothing: shoes, footwear, things like that, but there is a limit of $60. So, if you need to buy some expensive sneakers for your high school boy as I do, unfortunately, it’s only if the item is $60 or less. School supplies have to be $15 or less per item. And then, this is an excellent thing.

The first thousand dollars of a sale of a computer and certain computer-related accessories is not subject to sales tax. So if you have to buy a fancier computer and it’s over a thousand dollars, that first thousand, no sales tax. They would do sales tax on the rest of it. Now, all these things have to be used… Personal use for kids to go to school. It can’t be commercial. So no business owners. I’m sorry. You cannot go out and refurbish your office with all new office supplies and computers and all that stuff. It’s really for getting the kids back to school.

I’m going to say, “Go early.” I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to buy this stuff at the tail end of this back-to-school sales tax holiday. There’s nothing left. And when you get those lists where they want particular things, like you need that purple binder and other crazy stuff that ends up on those school supplies lists.

So you want to go early, so you can find what you’re looking for. And enjoy that sales tax holiday—yet another great reason to live in Florida. And that’s it for this Tax Tip Tuesday, and we’ll see you next time.