LETTER EDITOR TO THE

Taxes charged on tax-free weekend

On Aug. 4 my wife and I purchased some textbooks and art supplies for my daughter’s home school curriculum from Amazon. When we were checking out, we were charged taxes for these purchases. I called customer service and was told that the textbooks and art supplies were not covered by the tax-free weekend. I also looked up the same items on Walmart.com and they were also charging tax.

Feeling this was odd, I reached out to an Arkansas legislator and the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, they confirmed that textbooks and art supplies should have been covered under the tax-free weekend and they have opened a case to investigate this.

I reached back out to Amazon and told them what was going on, and they escalated the issue to a higher level. About a week later, I have now received my tax money back for these school purchases.

If you purchased school supplies for your child during the tax-free weekend and were charged tax, please let me know. If you aren’t comfortable letting someone else know, at a minimum call the retailer that charged you tax and let them know that Arkansas DFA has a case open. I can pretty much assure you they will yield.

I will keep pressing on this with DFA because it appears that businesses are not honoring the taxfree weekend and the people of Arkansas need to be aware of this. Arkansas has the highest sales tax in the country at 9.47%

Joseph Bollinger

Bella Vista