Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday begins Friday, Aug. 7

If you’re shopping for back-to-school supplies or computer, you might want to wait until the annual Missouri Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday begins at 12:01 a.m. Friday, Aug. 7. It will continue through Sunday, Aug. 9.

Webb City has always observed the holiday since it began in 2003 by not charging its sales tax during three-day period, but 156 others, such as Joplin, used to opt out of not collecting their local sales taxes. That option was removed in 2023, so it no longer depends on which city you do your tax-free shopping.

The opt-out provision was repealed partly in order to streamline sales-tax collection for online retailers.

In Webb City, the savings on qualified items is 8.1¢ for every dollar spent. That includes 4.225¢ for the state and 1.375¢ for the county, in addition to the city’s combined 2.5¢ sales tax.

Webb City collects 2.5¢ for every dollar residents spend with online retailers. That’s known as the use tax.

These are the items you can avoid sales tax on from 12:01 Friday, Aug. 7 to midnight Sunday, Aug. 8.

• Clothing – any article having a taxable value of $100 or less
• School supplies – not to exceed $50 per purchase
• Computer software – taxable value of $350 or less
• Personal computers – not to exceed $1,500
• Computer peripheral devices – not to exceed $1,500
• Graphing calculators – not to exceed $150

Of course, the sales tax holiday would be a good time to purchase school supplies to donate to Webb City CARES.

Here is the Webb City R-7 School District’s list of school supplies that will be needed when school starts on