It seems like yesterday the kids were finishing the school year, and just like that we are already preparing for a new school year! There are several stores that have their shelves stocked with supplies and a display holding the area school supply lists.
With a new school year comes the requests for the coolest bookbag, sneakers, and clothes. Luckily for those of us in Ohio, and several other states, the sales tax holiday is coming up soon. Ohio’s sales tax holiday starts on Friday, August 3, 2018 at 12:00 AM and ends on Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 11:59 PM. During the holiday, clothing priced at $75 or less, school supplies priced at $20 or less, and school instructional material priced at $20 or less are all exempt from sales and use tax. According to the Ohio Department of Taxation, you can purchase multiple tax-exempt items in the same transaction, such as two shirts, two pairs of pants, and a jacket, as long as they all fall below the $75 limit. Items that qualify for clothing include shoes, pants, shirts, dresses, coats, gloves, hats, and several others. The list for items identified as “school supplies” is much stricter. School supplies include binders; book bags; calculators; cellophane tape; blackboard chalk; compasses; composition books; crayons; erasers; folders (expandable, pocket, plastic, and manila); glue, paste, and paste sticks; highlighters; index cards; index card boxes; legal pads; lunch boxes; markers; notebooks; paper; loose leaf ruled notebook paper, copy paper, graph paper, tracing paper, manila paper, colored paper, poster board, and construction paper; pencil boxes and other school supply boxes; pencil sharpeners; pencils; pens; protractors; rulers; scissors; and writing tablets. Additionally, instructional material included in the sales tax holiday is reference books, reference maps and globes, textbooks, and workbooks. Teachers, parents, and college students can same a fair amount of money if they purchase all of their clothing and supplies during this sales tax holiday. You can find more information about Ohio’s sales tax holiday by clicking here.
To lessen the cost of buying school supplies every year, Ohio Gov. John Kasich recently signed the sales tax holiday into law. The permanent sales tax holiday will occur on the first Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of August each year.
It is also a good time of year to review some safety tips with your children, especially if this is their first year in school.
- Make sure your child(ren) knows their phone number, address, how to get in touch with their parents at work, how to get in touch with another trusted adult and how to dial 9-1-1.
- Teach children not to talk to strangers or accept rides from someone they don’t know.
- Board the bus only after it has come to a complete stop and the driver or attendant has instructed you to get on.
- Only board your bus and never an alternate one.
- Always stay in clear view of the bus driver and never walk behind the bus.
Nilges Draher would like to wish everyone a safe and happy school year!