The State of Tennessee’s annual Sales Tax Holiday is held every year on the first Friday in August and ends the following Sunday night.
This year’s tax-free holiday weekend begins at 12:01 a.m on Friday and ends Sunday at 11:59 p.m.
Tax-free items include clothing with a price of $100 or less per item, school and school art supplies with a price of $100 or less per item and computers with a price of $1,500 or less.
These items are exempt from state and local sales tax in Tennessee during the holiday.
Local governments are held harmless and are reimbursed lost sales tax revenues by the state.
Any individual can make a tax-free purchase during the holiday. However, items purchased for use by a trade or business are not exempt.
The holiday also includes purchases of qualified items sold via mail, telephone, email or Internet if the customer orders and pays for the item and the retailer accepts the order during the holiday for immediate shipment, even if delivery is made after the exemption period.
If a customer wishes to order a certain tax-free item during the holiday and it is not in stock, the item remains tax-free upon delivery.
In other words, backlogs and backorders outside the buyer’s control will not affect the exempt status of tax-free items. Intentionally delayed sales are taxable.
Tax-free Clothing:
• Belts
• Caps
• Coats
• Dresses
• Gloves
• Hats
• School Uniforms
• Shirts
• Shoes
• Socks
• Sneakers
• Underwear
• Hosiery
• Jackets
• Jeans
• Neckties
• Pants
• Scarves
Items subject to sales tax include clothing accessories: belt buckles (sold separately), briefcases, cosmetics, hair notions, handbags, jewelry, patches and emblems (sold separately), sewing equipment and supplies, sewing materials, sunglasses, umbrellas, wallets, and watches.
• Protective equipment: breathing masks, face shields, hard hats, hearing protectors, helmets, paint or dust respirators, protective gloves and welder’s gloves, safety glasses and goggles, and tool belts.
• Sports or recreational equipment: ballet or tap shoes, cleated or spiked athletic shoes, gloves (baseball, boxing, golf), goggles, hand and elbow guards, life preservers and vests, mouth guards, roller and ice skates, shin guards, shoulder pads, ski boots, and wet suits and fins.
Tax-free School and Art Supplies:
• Binders
• Book Bags/Backpacks
• Calculators
• Chalk
• Crayons
• Erasers
• Folders
• Glue
• Lunch Boxes
• Notebooks
• Paper
• Pens
• Pencils
• Rulers
• Scissors
• Tape
Items subject to sales tax include school computer supplies: compact disks, computer printers, computer storage media, diskettes, handheld electronic schedulers, personal digital assistants, and printer supplies including paper and ink.
Note: textbooks and workbooks are always exempt from sales tax.
Tax-free School Art Supplies
• Clay and Glazes
• Paints
• Paintbrushes
• Sketch and
Drawing Pads
• Watercolors
Items subject to sales tax include computer parts: monitors, keyboards, speakers, and scanners when not sold in conjunction with a CPU. Individually-purchased software, or other software not part of a pre-loaded software package on the initial purchase of a computer.
Storage media such as diskettes and Compact disks are not exempt.
• Computers with a purchase price of $1,500 or less, not for use in a trade or business, are exempt from sales tax.
• A computer is a central processing unit (CPU) that includes a monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, cables to connect components, and preloaded software.Published in The WCP 8.2.12