Back-to-school tax holiday is this weekend

As hard as it may be for parents to believe, back-to-school time is right around the corner. This Friday through Sunday, Missouri is giving them a break with its annual sales tax-free weekend. Kansas is also offering a similar program this weekend.

During that period, certain back-to-school purchases such as school supplies, computers, clothing and other qualifying items are exempt from local and state sales tax.

Since last year, in addition to the state sales tax, local sales tax will also be waived in all cities, counties and special tax districts.

The tax break applied to these items:

Clothing. Any article of wearing apparel intended to be worn on or about the human body, including but not limited to disposable diapers for infants or adults and footwear. The term shall include but not be limited to cloth and other materials 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. Each article of clothing must have a taxable value of $100 or less.

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, graphing calculators, chalk, map, 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 $350 or less and graphing calculators valued at $150 or less.

Personal computers: A laptop, desktop or tower computer system that 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, digitizer, microphone, modem, motherboard, mouse, multimedia speaker, printer, scanner, single-user hardware, single-user operating system, soundcard or video card. Personal computers and computer peripheral devices cannot exceed $1,500.

Items that are not eligible include watches, watchbands, jewelry, handbags, handkerchiefs, umbrellas, scarves, ties, headbands and belt buckles. Anyone who makes a qualified purchase may participate in the holiday. They do not have to be a Missouri resident or student to participate.

–Dwight Widaman