Texas Tax Free Weekend Is This Weekend

With the daily ringing of school bells that are about to be the norm across East Texas, you've gotta get the kids ready for the new school year.  As you prepare them for school, you're doing that back to school shopping and spending quite a bit of money on those required things they need for school.  Well this weekend you can save some money by not paying taxes on some of those things!

Officially called the Sales Tax Holiday by the State Of Texas, the Tax Free Weekend, as its referred to by us commoners, can save you some money!  So what ever you call it, you can save the sales tax on certain items Friday, August 17th thru Sunday, August 19th.

As you prepare to shop in the crowds, which are very similar in size to the day after Thanksgiving sales, it is important to note not everything is tax exempt.  The law exempts a lot of clothing, shoes, school supplies and backpacks that have a retail price less than $100.  So, be careful when shopping!

Thanks to the Texas Comptrollers Office, here are the tax exempt school supply items:

•Binders
•Book bags
•Calculators
•Cellophane tape
•Blackboard chalk
•Compasses
•Composition books
•Crayons
•Erasers
•Folders; expandable, pocket, plastic, and manila
•Glue, paste and paste sticks
•Highlighters
•Index cards
•Index card boxes
•Legal pads
•Lunch boxes
•Markers (including dry erase markers)
•Notebooks
•Paper; loose leaf ruled notebook paper, copy paper, graph paper, tracing paper, manila paper, colored paper, poster board, and construction paper
•Pencil boxes and other school supply boxes
•Pencil sharpeners
•Pencils
•Pens
•Protractors
•Rulers
•Scissors
•Writing tablets

You can also check out a list of qualifying clothing, footwear and other items from the Texas Comptrollers site and see a list of items that are not exempt!

Have fun shopping and saving money this weekend!