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Florida’s Tax Free Weekend is Friday, August 4 — Sunday, August 6. It began at 12:01 a.m. on Friday and will end Sunday at 11:59 p.m. This means tax free weekend is going on right now.
The following items are exempt from taxes in Florida:
- Certain school supplies that are $15 or less per item
- Clothing, accessories, and shoes that are $60 or less per item
- Personal computers and computer accessories for non-commercial/personal use that cost $750 or less per item
- Eligible items that are put on layaway during the tax-free weekend, even if the final payment is made after the tax-free weekend is over
The clothing and accessories part of the exemption can get a little confusing. Qualified clothing includes apparel, footwear, and some accessories. But qualified accessories do not include watches, jewelry, umbrellas, athletic gloves or shoes, corsages, cosmetic bags, elbow pads, any gloves for sports, skates, wigs, or handkerchiefs. Qualified accessories do include items such as hairbands and ponytail holders, belt buckles, bow ties, barrettes and bobby pins, hair clips, scarves, ties, coin purses, purses, fanny packs, and wallets.
Qualified clothing (that costs $60 or less per item) includes items such as:
- Aerobic & fitness clothing
- Aprons
- Baby clothes, diapers, and diaper bags
- Belts
- Bibs
- Bicycle helmets for youth
- Baseball cleats, fishing vests, hunting vests
- Swimsuits & coverups
- Bowling shoes
- Undergarments
- Costumes
- Hats & caps
- Scout uniforms
- Shirts, shorts, etc.
- Sleepwear
- Suits
- Uniforms
- And more.
Preparing for #BacktoSchool? Shop qualifying items tax exempt Aug 4-6 during 2017 Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday t.co/nlqSgUC9eL
The following items are NOT exempt from taxes in Florida:
- Any item of clothing that costs more than $60
- Any school supply that costs more than $15
- Personal computers and computer accessories purchased for business purposes
- Any rentals or leases, even if the items are eligible
- Repairs or alterations of eligible items
- Any eligible items sold in a theme park, entertainment complex, airport, or public lodging
It’s tough to know where to draw the line on school supplies. For example, staplers, staples, masking tape, and computer paper are not tax free. But construction paper, colored pencils, erasers, highlighters, paste, pens, pencils, and scissors are tax free. The details are listed here.
Computer accessories are also tough to determine without looking at the list. Examples of tax free items include docking stations, hard drives, ink cartridges, keyboards, mice, microphones, monitors (as long as they don’t include television tuners), PDAs that are not phones, and routers and scanners, speakers, and web cameras. But items that are not tax free include computer bags, cases, digital cameras, game controllers like joysticks, game systems and software, MP3 players, projectors, smart phones, surge protectors, and video game consoles.
If you buy an item during tax free weekend and later exchange it for the same item (just a different size or color), you won’t have to pay taxes, even if you make the exchange after tax-free weekend.
Note: Tax free exemptions are based on the price per item. There’s no limit on how many of a particular exempt item you can buy.
