Sales Tax Holiday Set Aug. 2-3

STAFF PHOTO JASON IVESTER A sign promotes Target’s Together We Give program in the back-to-school section. As part of the program, when a customer purchases a select item, Target donates the same to the Kids in Need Foundation.
STAFF PHOTO JASON IVESTER A sign promotes Target’s Together We Give program in the back-to-school section. As part of the program, when a customer purchases a select item, Target donates the same to the Kids in Need Foundation.

ROGERS -- A sales tax holiday next weekend is part of the back-to-school countdown for teachers and parents.

School starts Aug. 18 in most Northwest Arkansas districts, and buying supplies is part of how teachers prepare.

At A Glance

Tax Holidays

• Arkansas’ sales tax holiday exempts school supplies, clothing and shoes priced less than $100 per item, clothing accessories priced at under $50 per item and instructional material from Aug. 2-3.

• Oklahoma’s sales tax holiday exempts clothing and shoes priced less than $100 per item from Aug. 1-3.

• Missouri’s sales tax holiday exempts clothing and shoes priced less than $100 per item, $50 of school supplies, computer software priced under $350 and computers priced less than $3,500 from Aug. 1-3.

• Other states with sales tax holidays include: Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Sources: Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, Missouri Department of Revenue, Oklahoma Tax Commission and the Federation of Tax Administrators

At A Glance

What’s On The Receipt?

The sales tax holiday can mean a discount of almost 10 percent in Northwest Arkansas before advertised sales. Sales tax is made up of local, state and county taxes. Local tax is 2 percent in Bentonville, Fayetteville, Rogers and Springdale. State taxes are 6.5 percent. Benton County charges a 1 percent sales tax and Washington County charges 1.25 percent sales tax.

• Sales tax is 9.5 percent of purchases in Benton County.

• Sales tax is 9.75 percent of purchases in Washington County.

Source: Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration

Kyla Trammell, third-grade teacher at Bonnie Grimes Elementary School in Rogers, will be shopping for 25 kids. One box of crayons won't last an entire year, Trammell said, so she'll buy extra.

Every third-grader has a list of what to bring to school: pencils, glue sticks, scissors, crayons, erasers, notebooks and paper. Administrators in Rogers say they try to keep the cost for parents at under $20. This year a districtwide supply list replaced those from individual schools in Rogers.

"I need more than what's on that list," Trammell said.

Arkansas' sales tax holiday begins at 12:01 a.m. Saturday and ends at 11:59 p.m. Aug. 3.

Items exempt from sales tax include school supplies, art supplies, instructional material, clothing priced at less than $100 an item and clothing accessories priced at less than $50 an item. Sales tax in Northwest Arkansas is about 10 percent of the ticket.

State law requires school districts to provide prekindergarten through sixth-grade teachers a $20 per student budget for the classroom or class activities, or about $500. Trammell plans on buying pocket brad folders, pencil boxes and extra glue sticks for her class. She'll finish picking up supplies during next weekend's sales tax holiday.

The $500 required by the state also goes to outfitting the room with learning tools, books or activities. She spent money out of her own pocket for those things in the past, Trammel said. She hopes to buy books for the classroom library with money she saves with discounts and the tax holiday.

A Harris Poll survey performed on behalf of Staples, an office supply store, estimated parents will spend $133 on back-to-school supplies for students 13-19 years old. About 53 percent of parents were planning to shop in the month before school starts, according to the survey.

Glue sticks, crayons and colored pencils are the top three school supplies sold nationwide at Walmart, said John Forrest Ales, Walmart spokesman. The retailer runs discounts from July through Labor Day and will have more rollbacks on school supplies this year than last, he said.

"We know, particularly during sales tax week, lots of customers will be in the store, and we want to make it easy for them," Ales said.

Back to school is big business, said Kathy Deck, economist and director of Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas.

Christmas is still the biggest retail season, Deck said, but the season from July through September is a key segment of the year.

Parents will spend an estimated $669 on apparel, shoes, supplies and electronics to send a kindergarten- through 12th-grade student back to school, according to the National Retail Federation's 2014 Back-to-School Survey. Parents spent an average of $634 on back-to-school shopping last year, according to the survey.

The sales tax holiday probably doesn't create sales as much as it moves them around, Deck said.

"If you are a consumer you only have the money you have, and you only have the credit you have," she said.

Neighboring states have the sales tax holiday weekend and that justified its start in Arkansas in 2011.

"It's not Black Friday," Deck said. "I think the jury is out on whether it generates extra sales."

NW News on 07/27/2014

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