Tax on clothes/ goods in America

dmm82

Hi, I have been told that there is a card you can get if you are holiday in America that means you don't have to pay tax on goods or that you can claim back tax paid in the airport on the way home, does anyone know if this is true?

carleigh

Not sure if such a card exists or not. If you go to the customer service desk in Macys with your passport, they will give you a discount card to use there, so that would be a small saving.

seamus

No such card exists. Sales taxes are not applied at the federal level, so you can't claim a rebate directly from the US Revenue.

Some states (very few apparently) operate a tax-free system for visitors, but only for stores to sell stuff tax-free, not for people to claim a rebate.

As mentioned above, a number of big shops issue discount cards to foreign visitors and it's the land of haggling so if you mention that you're on holiday, a shop might cut the price, but you don't get anything tax-free.

Also be wary of what you buy in the States. When you return to Dublin Airport, Irish customs can and may stop you and force you to pay VAT and import duty. They've apparently gotten much stricter about this, stopping people who are coming through with two suitcases each bursting at the seams.

dmm82

No way, I didn't realise they could do that, and I'm planning on hopefully doing a good bit of shopping! :mad:

Bigcheeze

dmm82 wrote: »

Hi, I have been told that there is a card you can get if you are holiday in America that means you don't have to pay tax on goods or that you can claim back tax paid in the airport on the way home, does anyone know if this is true?

Some US states have no tax on clothes. New Jersey being one.
Also US tax on goods tends to be low - 7-8% being typical.

rodneytrotter15

If you are going to Boston, cross the state line from MA to NH ( New Hampshire ) there is no salex tax here....

Bigcheeze

rodneytrotter15 wrote: »

If you are going to Boston, cross the state line from MA to NH ( New Hampshire ) there is no salex tax here....

or decent shopping

Stinicker

dmm82 wrote: »

Hi, I have been told that there is a card you can get if you are holiday in America that means you don't have to pay tax on goods or that you can claim back tax paid in the airport on the way home, does anyone know if this is true?

It all varies on a state by state by basis. Louisiana and Texas have two schemes in place to refund the sales tax.

Sales tax is their equivalent of our VAT and is generally under 10% but varies by state. If you have never been to the US before you will find that the tax is added at the checkout (unlike Ireland and the EU) and the marked prices are pre-tax so a t-shirt on sale for $9.99 may come to $11 etc.

Non-EU Foreigners when they come to Ireland get the tax back on purchases also and you often see Tax-Free Shopping up on shops for them.

This is an old thread but has alot of info of the subject from 2005- present.

rodneytrotter15

Bigcheeze wrote: »

rodneytrotter15 wrote: »

If you are going to Boston, cross the state line from MA to NH ( New Hampshire ) there is no salex tax here....

or decent shopping

Not sure what kind of clobber you're after, there's plenty of shops in Rockingham Mall and it's only 40 mins from Logan, there's a fairly large outlet store relatively near as well, the name of which escapes me..

solerina

I was in Texas last year and we were able to get a form stamed at the sales desk in the shop, you gathered up all the forms and brought them to a tax back desk (in large stores) and got your refunds.