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 tax-free 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
Editorial on 08/28/2019