Missouri’s annual sales tax holiday offers relief for back-to-school shopping
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Missouri’s annual back-to-school sale tax holiday is underway, making certain school supplies, computers, and clothing exempt from all state and local sales taxes during a 72-hour window.
The sales tax holiday began Friday morning at 12:01 a.m. and will run through midnight Sunday, Aug. 4. A state law that went into effect last year requires all cities and counties not to charge local sales tax on qualifying items. In the past, localities had an option to participate.
Boone County was one of 49 Missouri counties to opt out of the sales tax holiday in 2022. Boone County Northern District Commissioner Janet Thompson claimed that one of the reasons for this is that the tax holiday didn’t just affect those putting kids through school.
“It was an unfunded mandate on the counties to come up with the revenue to support folks who would just go out and buy a lot of stuff because there wasn't any limit on what they could buy at that time,” Thompson told ABC 17 News. “That's something that the state legislature does a lot and says 'We're going to take away something and you're going to still have to provide the services that that your constituents expect. But we're going to take away the revenue source for providing those services.'”
Thompson says that the sales tax holiday still has an impact on the county's finances, but remote sales tax helps recapture some of the lost sales tax revenue. However, she added that the burden is lessened now that the sales tax holiday has more targeted guidelines.
“It's making sure that families can send their kids out for school so that they're prepared to learn this so that they have all the tools they need to be able to learn in the fall and be ready to go. That's something that we need to support and at the same time understand that there are services that are provided locally,” Thompson said. “When we limit the revenues that are coming we have to figure out, depending on the impact of that sales tax holiday, how we're going to balance those needs to make sure that we can still provide the core services that we are obligated to provide to our constituents.”
New school supplies have rapidly become a burden on families across the United States. Data from the National Retail Federation says that American families spent $41.5 billion on back-to-school supplies last year. This year that number is already up to $38.8 billion in total spending.
The National Retail Federation also estimates that the average household spends nearly $900 per year on school supplies for grades K-12. For households spending on back-to-college supplies in 2024, that total is an average of $1,365.75.
As a result, the tax exemptions provide some much-needed relief. In Jefferson City, the total tax rate is 7.9% while in Columbia the total tax rate is 8.5%.
According to a release from the Department of Revenue, the following items are tax-exempt:
• Clothing that does not have a taxable value of more than $100. Eligible clothing items include any article of apparel intended to be worn on or about the body, including footwear and disposable diapers for infants or adults. Cloth and other materials used to make school uniforms or other school clothing are also included. Not included are watches, watchbands, jewelry, handbags, handkerchiefs, umbrellas, scarves, ties, headbands or belt buckles.
• School supplies, not exceeding $50 per purchase, that are used in a standard classroom for educational purposes. School supplies include -- but are not limited to -- textbooks, notebooks, paper, writing instruments, crayons, art supplies, rulers, book bags, backpacks, chalk, maps, globes, handheld calculators, graphing calculators that do not have a taxable value of more than $150 and computer software that does not have a taxable value of more than $350. Not included are watches, radios, CD players, headphones, sporting equipment, portable or desktop telephones, copiers or other office equipment, furniture, or fixtures.
• Personal computers that do not cost more than $1,500 and computer peripheral devices that do not cost more than $1,500. A personal computer can be a laptop, desktop, or tower computer system which consists of a central processing unit, random access memory, a storage drive, a display monitor and a keyboard. Peripheral devices include items such as a disk drive.
