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| Waynesville, Pulaski County opt out of back-to-school weekend tax holiday |
By: Darrell Todd Maurina
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Posted: Saturday, August 8, 2009 11:44 am
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PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. (Aug. 8, 2009) — Elected officials for most but not all governmental units in the Fort Leonard Wood area have decided to participate in Missouri’s statewide sales tax holiday this weekend for back-to-school purchasing, but Pulaski County, the city of Waynesville, and some other nearby communities won’t be participating.
That means people who shop at businesses in the cities of Crocker, Dixon, Richland, and St. Robert, as well as the unincorporated communities of Big Piney, Devil’s Elbow, Laquey, and Swedeborg, will still pay a three-quarter-cent county sales tax this weekend, and those who shop in Waynesville will pay a 3 percent combined city and county sales tax.
Anywhere in Missouri, the state sales tax rate of 4.225 percent has been waived for certain qualifying back-to-school purchases such as clothing, school supplies, and computers for a three-day period from Friday, Aug. 7, to Sunday, Aug. 9.
The details of a qualifying “back to school purchase” are that clothing must be $100 or less per item, school supply purchases must be less than $50 per purchase, computer software must have a value of $350 or less, and computers or computer peripheral devices must be $3,500 or less per item.
The formal list of qualifying items can be found on the Missouri Department of Revenue website at http://dor.mo.gov/tax/business/sales/taxholiday/school/faq.htm#q4.
In surrounding areas:
• Laclede County to the west and all of its cities are participating in the sales tax holiday so nobody shopping in Lebanon or communities near Fort Leonard Wood such as Lynchburg, Nebo, Falcon and Stoutland will pay sales tax. That’s also true of Maries County north of Fort Leonard Wood and its cities such as Vienna.
• Phelps County to the east is still charging a sales tax of 0.875 percent, which means shoppers in Rolla as well as communities near Fort Leonard Wood such as Doolittle, Duke, Edgar Springs, Jerome, and Newburg will pay that county rate. Rolla and St. James have both waived their city sales taxes.
• Miller County to the north isn’t charging a sales tax, but some of its cities are doing so. Shoppers in Iberia and Tuscumbia won’t have to pay any sales tax, but shoppers in Eldon will pay 2.4 percent city sales tax and shoppers in St. Elizabeth will pay 1 percent city sales tax.
• Texas County to the south is still charging a 1.5 percent county sales tax. While shoppers in communities close to Fort Leonard Wood such as the village of Plato and the unincorporated areas of Roby and Success will pay only the county’s 1.5 sales tax rate, some farther-out Texas County cities are charging their own sales tax, so Cabool and Licking shoppers will pay a total of 3 percent county and city sales tax, while Houston shoppers will pay a total of 3.125 percent sales tax and Mountain Grove shoppers will pay 3.5 percent sales tax.
• The highest remaining tax rates this weekend will be in the Lake of the Ozarks area, where Camden County is still charging its 1.25 percent county sales tax and some of its cities are charging sales taxes as well. That means shoppers in Camdenton and Osage Beach will pay a 3.25 percent combined city and county sales tax rate, but smaller outlying communities such as Climax Springs, Macks Creek and Montreal will only pay the 1.25 percent county sales tax rate. That also affects portions of the cities of Richland and Stoutland in Camden County where shoppers will have to pay a 1.25 percent sales tax rate to Camden County rather than the 0.75 percent sales tax to Pulaski County. Shoppers at businesses in the portion of Richland and Stoutland that are in Laclede County won’t have to pay any sales tax.
A complete sales tax table can be found on the Missouri Department of Revenue website at http://dor.mo.gov/tax/business/sales/rates/2009/sth09.pdf.
The state of Missouri has another sales tax holiday that runs for seven days in April during which customers have a rebate of the state sales tax on purchases of energy-efficient appliances costing $1,500 or less. While cities and counties can participate in that holiday, which this year ran from April 19 to April 25, the only area city that chose to participate in that sales tax holiday was Rolla, and no area counties participated.
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