Sales tax holiday underway

August 1, 2008
St. Charles County

Shoppers are already taking advantage of Missouri’s sales tax holiday this weekend. The tax holiday relieves consumers of sales taxes on specific back-to-school purchases. Officially, the holiday began at 12:01 a.m. Fri. and will end at midnight on Sun.

Each local jurisdiction chooses whether to participate in the sales tax holiday. In St. Charles County, the cities which chose not to participate are: Cottleville, Flint Hill, New Melle and St. Peters.

Shopping guidelines on sales tax exempt items:
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 $3,500
Computer peripheral devices—not to exceed $3,500

From Section 144.049 of the Missouri Revised Statutes:

“Clothing”, any article of wearing apparel, including footwear, intended to be worn on or about the human body. The term shall include but not be limited to cloth and other material used to make school uniforms or other school clothing. Items normally sold in pairs shall not be separated to qualify for the exemption. The term shall not include watches, watchbands, jewelry, handbags, handkerchiefs, umbrellas, scarves, ties, headbands, or belt buckles; and
“Personal computers”, 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 and devices designed for use in conjunction with a personal computer, such as a disk drive, memory module, compact disk drive, daughterboard, digitalizer, microphone, modem, motherboard, mouse, multimedia speaker, printer, scanner, single-user hardware, single-user operating system, soundcard, or video card;
“School supplies”, any item normally used by students in a standard classroom for educational purposes, including but not limited to textbooks, notebooks, paper, writing instruments, crayons, art supplies, rulers, book bags, backpacks, handheld calculators, chalk, maps, and globes. The term shall not include watches, radios, CD players, headphones, sporting equipment, portable or desktop telephones, copiers or other office equipment, furniture, or fixtures. School supplies shall also include computer software having a taxable value of three hundred fifty dollars or less.

To read more of Section 144.049 and the sales today holiday, see the Missouri Department of Revenue website.

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