Missouri sales tax holiday is this weekend, opt-outs not available for first time

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

This weekend is Missouri's annual sales tax holiday.

Families will be able to shop for clothing and school items without paying sales or local tax on those items. The 2023 Back-to-School holiday will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday and ends Sunday.

This year's holiday is different than previous years because local counties can no longer opt out of the local sales tax. This means that when you go shopping this weekend, there will be no state or local sales tax.

According to the Missouri Department of Revenue, the sales tax exemption is limited to the following:

• Clothing- any article having a taxable value of $100 or less
• School supplies - not to exceed $50 per purchase
• Computer software - taxable value of $350 or less
• Personal computers - not to exceed $1,500
• Computer peripheral devices - not to exceed $1,500
• Graphing calculators - not to exceed $150

This sales tax sits around 8.48% in Columbia in 7.85% Jefferson City, according to an average from the Missouri Department of Revenue. At area malls, the sales tax rate sits 8.85% at the Capital Mall in Jefferson City and 8.48% at the Columbia Mall, based on the same data.

Boone County's sales tax rate is 5.98%, Cole County's is 5.6%, Callaway County's is at 6.73%, Cooper County sits at 6.23% and Moniteau County is 6.98%, according to the Department of Revenue.

Missouri State Director for the National Federation of Independent Business Brad Jones said the NFIB is excited about the new tax exemptions.

"So, if you've got a municipality that's got their own sales tax, that will also be exempt. So in some communities, the sales tax exemptions are really going to be a big deal," Jones said. "It's going to be a lot more than maybe just the state sales tax."

Jones also said that this weekend creates an opportunity for consumers to shop for school supplies at local businesses. He believes that this weekend will be good for the small businesses because more people will be shopping in their stores.

"This is another opportunity where we've got, you know, thousands of small businesses out there that do provide some of the goods that are on the list, like kids clothes and computers and some of those things that are on the sales tax exemption list for the weekend," Jones said.