Tax-free shopping returns to Virginia, offering relief to back-to-school shoppers

LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) — Back to school is right around the corner and you can get your school supply shopping done this weekend, tax-free.

Tax-free weekend shopping runs Friday morning through Sunday night, so shoppers can take advantage and get all of their needed supplies.

This is most definitely something good to take advantage of I think in my opinion,” Brianna Hill, a shopper at River Ridge Mall said.

This weekend, shoppers in Lynchburg can save 5.3 percent. That’s 4.3 percent on the state tax and a one percent local option tax.

ABC13 shopped off of a supply list from a Lynchburg City middle school. According to that list, the average seventh grader needs around $165 worth of supplies for things like binders and notebooks. For those supplies, this weekend, you’d get an $8.75 tax break.

While that doesn’t seem like much, shoppers ABC13 spoke with said anything is helpful.

“The cheaper the better, you know, save a little bit,” Hill said.

Everything’s expensive now, groceries, everything, eating out, so we’re excited to have any break we can get,” Sherry Mull, another River Ridge shopper, said.

There are limitations when it comes to the deals. For school supplies, each item has to be $20 or less, and for clothes or shoes it has to be $100 or less.

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Folks across the area are planning on cashing in.

“There’s a bunch of new stuff and it’s kind of like cool to shop,” Mull’s daughter said. “She loves shopping, new clothes, new shoes,” Mull added.

LJ Nadal with River Ridge in Lynchburg said they’re expecting a lot of people to come out and get a bang for their buck.

We’re excited for people to be able to maybe get some of those things now when they weren’t maybe able to earlier in the year,” he said.

Nadal said if you need to get your shopping done, this weekend is the time to do it. He said they’re expecting a large crowd.

“We’re looking forward to another big turnout from the community here, as we get closer to school coming back, to students needing their supplies, needing nice outfits to kind of dress to impress for the first day of school,” he said.

Nadal said they’ve got pretty much anything you could want at River Ridge, and on top of the tax-free weekend, many of their stores also have sales going on, so you can save some extra cash.

“I just hope that everybody takes advantage of it, you know,” Hill said.

It’s been over a year since Virginia has done a tax-free weekend before the school year, and delegate Wendell Walker said it’s because it was overlooked in last year’s budget.

Now, he said a new bill has made the annual holiday permanent. He said the three-day-long shopping event helps consumers during the expensive task of getting ready for back to school.

The more resources we can give back to the parents, the taxpayers, the more money they have then to put into their school supplies or the needs that their children have,” Del. Walker said.

While the average tax relief this weekend is only 5 percent, Walker said it can add up, noting that with today’s inflation, taxpayers deserve all of the relief they can get.