Attention Retailers: Tax-Free Days are August 4th - 13th

The sales tax holiday is here again.  If your business sells books, clothing, footwear, certain accessories, or certain school supplies in Florida, the Sales Tax Holiday may impact your business.  For 10 days, these items will be tax-free (if they meet certain price restrictions).   

Here are some details about this year’s tax-free shopping days:  

• The tax-free days will run from 12:01 am August 4th, 2007 through midnight, August 13th, 2007.
• Tax-free items are books, clothing, footwear, and certain accessories selling for $50 or less.  Also exempt are school supplies selling for less than $10. 
• To be tax-free, books must be $50 or less each. Newspapers, magazines, periodicals, and audio books are not considered books and are still taxable.
• To be tax-free, clothes and footwear must be $50 or less.  “Clothing” does not include watches, watchbands, jewelry, umbrellas, or sporting equipment.  These items are taxable.
• To be tax-free, school supplies must be $10 or less each.  “School supplies” means pens, pencils, erasers, crayons, notebooks, notebook filler paper, legal pads, composition books, poster papers, scissors, tape, glue or paste, rulers, computer disks, protractors, compasses, and calculators.  

Retailers are not required to keep additional or special records for the tax-free days.  Simply continue the sales tax records that you normally would keep.  Sales of eligible items that are sold tax-free from August 4 - 13, should be reported as exempt sales on your sales tax return for that period.

The Florida Department of Revenue has mailed a detailed Tax Information Publication to all active registered sales tax dealers explaining:

• A detailed list of items that are tax-free and which ones are taxable
• What to do when a set contains both exempt and taxable items
• How to deal with gift certificates
• How to handle exchanges of tax exempt purchases after the tax-free days are over
• How to do refunds during/after the tax-free days
• How to handle coupons, rebates, discounts, rain checks and layaways
• How to handle tax-free sales in Bay County

If you would like a copy of the Department’s Taxpayer Information Publication on the sales tax holiday, please click here. 

If you have questions about the sales tax holiday, call the Department of Revenue’s toll-free Taxpayer Assistance line at 1-800-352-3671 between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. weekdays.  Or, you can visit the Department’s website for more information at www.myflorida.com/dor/taxes/tax_holiday.html. There, you can find an 8” x 11” poster of the tax-exempt items in a PDF format which you can print and keep at each register.

Published: 07/23/2007

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