2024 Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday

Clarion Top News

Thursday, 18 July 2024 12:04

Alabama will hold its 19th annual back-to-school sales tax holiday, beginning Friday, July 19 at 12:01 a.m. and ending Sunday, July 21 at midnight. Both the City of Scottsboro and Jackson County will participate in the tax-free weekend, allowing shoppers to purchase certain school supplies, computers, and clothing free of state sales tax. Local sales tax may still apply. All retailers are required to participate and may not charge tax on items that are legally declared exempt during the Sales Tax Holiday.
Items declared exempt include clothing/$100 or less per article of clothing. This includes all human wearing apparel suitable for general use such as belts, boots, caps, coats, diapers, dresses, gloves, gym suits, hats, hosiery, jackets, jeans, neckties, pajamas, pants, raincoats, robes, sandals, scarves, school uniforms, shirts, shoes, shorts, sneakers, socks, underwear, etc.

Computers, computer software and school computer supplies are exempt with a single purchase of a sales price of $750 or less. A computer may include a laptop, desktop or tower computer system which consists of a central processing unit (CPU) and devices such as a display monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers sold as a computer package. Computer parts and devices not sold as part of a package with the CPU will not qualify for the exemption.

The all inclusive list for school computer supplies includes computer storage media such as diskettes or compact disks, computer printers and printer supplies such as printer paper and printer ink.

School supplies for school, art and instructional material with a sales price of $50 or less per item are also exempt. These include binders, blackboard chalk, book bags, calculators, cellophane tape, compasses, composition books, crayons, erasers, expandable/pocket/plastic/manila folders, glue, paste, paste sticks, highlighters, index cards and index card boxes, legal pads, lunch boxes, markers, notebooks, loose leaf notebook/copy/graph/tracing/manila/colored/construction paper and poster board, pencil boxes and other school supply boxes, pencil sharpeners, pencils, pens, protractors, rulers, scissors and writing tablets.

Art supplies such as clay and glazes, acrylic/tempora/oil paints, paintbrushes for artwork, drawing/sketch pads and watercolors are also exempt. Reference maps and globes, required textbooks on an official school book list with a sales price of more than $30 and less than $50 will be exempt along with any book with a sales price of $30 or less per book, allowing it is a set of printed sheets bound together and published in a volume with an ISBN number.

For more information, contact the Alabama Department of Revenue from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday at 334-242-1490 or 866-576-6531. For the complete list of exempt and taxable items, visit revenue.alabama.gov.