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June 26, 2009

Tax-free weekend now includes school supplies

By Robby Robertson Staff Writer

Back to school shoppers will get some extra money in their pockets this coming school year.

School supplies — priced less than $100 — will be exempt from state and local taxes on the tax-free weekend from Aug. 21 to 23.

House Bill 1801 identifies supplies including, pens, crayons, calculators, notebooks, rulers, scissors and lunch boxes.

“I think the legislators realized that in order to make it worth a parents time to use the tax-free weekend to do their school supply shopping, they had to add school supplies,” Allen Speice, of the state comptrollers office said. “I think in the past, they were afraid to add those items because business people would go out and stock up on their office supplies during that time.”

Jeanene Villagran, manager of the Athens Wal-Mart Supercenter said that a section just for school supplies will be ready right after the Fourth of July.

“We usually start working on a school supply section as early as July 1,” she said. “We like to have it ready to go right after the holiday.”

Other school supply items that will be included are binders, legal pads, chalk, lunch boxes, book bags, markers, calculators, notebooks, paper of all types, cellophane tape, compasses, composition books, pencil boxes, crayons, pencil sharpeners and erasers. Other items included in the tax-free weekend are clothes and shoes under $100 and backpacks.

“A lot of families look forward to saving their hard earned money during the sales tax holiday weekend,” Texas Comptroller Susan Combs said. “Now they can make their back-to-school budgets stretch even further because more than two dozen school supply items will be tax-free.”

Villagran said school supply lists have already started coming in from area schools, but there should be more to come.

“We have some of the schools now, but we hope to have all the school lists by the end of July,” she said.

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