Florida Tax Free weekend?
 

Hi,
Im planning a trip to Orlando/Miami, and would like to go there for the tax free weekend (back-to-school). Do you know if its the same for FLO than for Texas, which is on the first Weekend of August. Thanks for your adivice.

Last year it was the last week in July; haven't heard about this year's dates.

Just so you know, the exemption does not apply to purchases at theme parks or airports.

Last year it ran in Florida from July 22 to July 30, but the actual dates have not yet been announced for this year.

One catch is that there is no tax ONLY on clothing and books under $50 per item, and only on school supplies less than $10 per item. If you buy a $79.99 coat or a $39.99 piece of computer software, you'll still pay tax, for example.

We just had a tax-free weekend in Tennessee and there was complicated list of what was exempt and what wasn't.

My suggestion is to check the state department of revenue website and see if they've posted anything yet. If not, keep checking, then read up on all the exclusions before you get to the stores.

Anybody knows if the same is other states? Never heard of tax-free in California :(

We have tax-free weekends here in Georgia and, in my opinion, the tax discount(around 6%)doesn't make it worth it to get in the crowds. I've found better prices on other days.

Here's a list of states from 2006 that had tax free shopping for back to school:

http://singleparents.about.com/b/a/000040.htm

Florida also had a tax-free period--I think it wasa a day!--for hurricane supplies, and there was a detailed list of which items were included. I think the school supplies one is nice, especially for families with several kids. Some of the supplies lists I've seen handed out by schools are pretty long...

tax free is just another gimmic to get you to spend more money.

You almost always save money looking for a sale and paying tax then paying regular price with no tax.

Our tax free weekend in TX is usually around the first of August. I used to make a point of shopping over that weekend, until I discovered the summer clearance sales over the next weekend are a much better deal.

Sales tax in Austin is 8.25% and the tax free weekend only applies to clothing and shoes priced under $100. There has been talk of adding school supplies to the list, but I don't know if that ever happened or not.

In Tenn. the tax is anywhere from 9.25%-9.75%, and if you shop smartly you can save $$$. I agree that it's a ploy to get people into the stores, but I didn't find that anyone had inflated prices or revoked their regular sales for the weekend. So it worked well for us. YMMV.

"My suggestion is to check the state department of revenue website and see if they've posted anything yet."

That's what I did before posting that the official dates haven't been decided yet.

Meanwhile, I noticed last year that while you could save tax during that period (6% here in our county), just after the tax free sale ended, most products went on a much bigger sale -- up to 40% off. The smart people were the ones who waited to buy.