Tax-Free weekend on tap
Published 12:00 am Thursday, August 4, 2005
Beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Friday August 5 and lasting until 11:59 p.m. Sunday August 7, the state of North Carolina will be offering exemption of sales taxes on many back to school items in their program called &uot;Sales Tax Free Weekend&uot;.
The program comes just in time for parents to take advantage of it as students make their return to school in the coming weeks.
The items that receive the exemption are clothing, shoes and school supplies less than $1,000 per item and computers for personal use that are priced less than $3,500.
This is the fourth annual
&uot;Sales Tax Free Weekend&uot; for North Carolina as it has continued to be a success.
&uot;It’s great for our area because anybody struggling money-wise can really take advantage of it,&uot; Patrick Demonfonte of the Bertie County Chamber of Commerce said.
Shoppers this year will see a few changes to the program – primarily dealing with computer supplies.
Canned software, or software sold off-the-shelf, will be taxed this year as well as printers and printer supplies.
Computer parts such as the monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers and cables are not taxed when sold with a central processing unit, but are taxed when sold separately.
Shoppers will be able to add such items as blackboard chalk, cellophane tape, index card boxes, markers, pencil boxes, rulers and writing tablets to the approved list for exemption.
The list already includes over 30 different supplies from binders to workbooks that will not be taxed during the period.
&uot;It’s a good thing because there are so many children unable to get necessary supplies,&uot; Bill Stephens of the Murfreesboro Chamber of Commerce said. &uot;I just wish they would have more of these kinds of days.&uot;
The program was enacted in 2001 and took effect in 2002 after the North Carolina General Assembly raised the state’s sales tax to 7 percent.
&uot;This program is beneficial to anybody willing to take advantage of it,&uot; Demonfonte said. &uot;We’re lucky to have it.&uot;
For more information on the sales tax holiday, go to:
http://www.dor.state.nc.us/taxes/sales/salestax_holiday.html
Items that qualify as &uot;school supplies&uot; for purposes of the sales tax holiday:
Binders
Books
Calculators
Cellophane Tape
Clay and glazes
Blackboard Chalk
Compasses
Composition Books
Crayons
Erasers
Folders (expandable, pocket, plastic and manila)
Glue, paste and paste sticks
Handheld electronic schedulers
Highlighters
Index cards
Index card boxes
Legal pads
Lunch boxes
Markers
Notebooks
Paper (loose leafed ruled notebook paper, copy paper, graph paper, tracing paper, manila paper, colored paper, poster board and construction paper)
Paints (acrylic, tempora and oil)
Paintbrushes for artwork
Pencil boxes and other school supply boxes
Pencil sharpeners
Pencils
Pens
Protractors
Reference books
Reference maps and globes
Rulers
Scissors
Sketch and drawing pads
Textbooks
Watercolors
Workbooks
Writing tablets