Back-to-school tax holiday is this weekend

The popular annual back-to-school tax-free shopping season returns to Florida Aug. 5, 6 and 7.

This annual weekend allows Sunshine State families to save on supplies and clothes to prepare their children and themselves for the upcoming year. Nationally, the average family is expected to spend $673.57 on apparel and accessories, shoes and school supplies, up from last year’s $630.36, says the Florida Retail Federation. Nationally, sales for this back-to-school shopping weekend are expected to reach $75 billion, up from $68 billion last year.

The holiday means big savings for shoppers and big business for retailers, which has become the second largest shopping weekend after Black Friday. As part of the holiday, shoppers don’t have to pay sales tax on back-to-school items including clothing and shoes priced at $60 or less, and school supplies less than $15 per item.

“Clothing” means any article of wearing apparel, including all footwear (except skis, swim fins and inline skates). and skates) intended to be worn on or about the human body. Clothing does not include watches, watchbands, jewelry, umbrellas, or handkerchiefs.

The exemption does not apply to sales of clothing, wallets, or bags in a theme park, entertainment complex, public lodging establishment or airport.

According to a recent National Retail Federation survey, for kids in kindergarten through 12th grade, consumers plan to spend $9.54 billion on clothing (purchased by 95 percent), $8.27 billion on electronics such as computers or calculators (57 percent), $5.12 billion on shoes (94 percent) and $4.37 billion on school supplies such as notebooks, folders, pencils, backpacks and lunchboxes (96 percent). Parents say they will spend an average $235.39 on clothing, $204.06 on electronics, $126.35 on shoes and $107.76 on school supplies.

College students and families with children in college plan to spend an average of $888.71, according to the survey. That’s down slightly from $899.18 last year, but total spending is expected to be up at $48.5 billion compared with $43.1 billion last year due to an increase of consumers shopping for back-to-college.

The survey found college consumers plan to spend $11.54 billion on electronics (purchased by 50 percent), $7.49 billion on clothing (70 percent), $6.23 billion on dorm furnishings (43 percent), $5.78 billion on food items (69 percent), $4.26 billion on personal care items (72 percent), $3.84 billion on shoes (67 percent), $3.53 billion on school supplies (81 percent), $3.14 billion on gift cards (36 percent) and $2.7 billion on branded collegiate gear (49 percent). Spending on electronics will average $211.33, apparel and accessories $137.29, dorm furnishings $114.21, food $105.88, personal care items $78.03, shoes $70.39, school supplies $64.64, gift cards $57.54 and branded gear $49.41.

The survey of 6,809 consumers asked about both back-to-school and back-to-college plans was conducted June 30-July 6 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points.

This story was originally published August 3, 2016 at 8:45 AM with the headline "Back-to-school tax holiday is this weekend."