Two customers buy the same $110 shirt off the same rack this month. Each one gets $15 off. One of those sales is taxable and the other is exempt, and nothing either customer can see explains the difference.
Florida's Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday closes on August 20. If you sell at retail in this state you have been running it since July 20, whether or not anyone in your business decided to. The Department of Revenue puts that on page one of its own guidance, set off in a box: "There is no option for dealers to opt-out of the annual Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday."
So for a month your registers have to sort every sale against four price caps: clothing, footwear, wallets, handbags and backpacks at $100 or less per item, certain school supplies at $50 or less, learning aids and jigsaw puzzles at $30 or less, and personal computers and certain accessories at $1,500 or less when bought for noncommercial home or personal use. Two of those carry traps worth knowing before you read further. Briefcases, suitcases and garment bags are excluded at any price, so the bag exemption is narrower than it sounds. And the computer exemption "does not apply to sales of personal computers or computer-related accessories for use in a trade or business," which for an owner working from a spare bedroom is the same laptop and the opposite answer. Charge tax on an exempt sale and you have collected money the customer never owed. Miss tax you should have collected and Florida law puts the bill on you: a dealer who "neglects, fails, or refuses to collect" the tax "shall be liable for and pay the tax himself or herself."
Back to the two shirts. What separates them is who funded the $15.
A manufacturer's coupon does not reduce the sales price, because the manufacturer pays you back for it. The TIP is direct about this: manufacturer's coupons "do not reduce the sales price of an item because the retailer is reimbursed for any discount provided to a customer," and "the amount of the reimbursement is included in the taxable sales price of an item." A discount you fund yourself does reduce the sales price, because it reduces what you actually take in.
So the first shirt is still a $110 sale. It sits above the $100 clothing cap and the full $110 is taxable, even though only $95 left that customer's wallet for the shirt. The second shirt is a $95 sale, under the cap, and no tax is due on it at all. Same rack, same $15 off, and one of those customers pays tax on a price nobody paid.
The test reaches past coupons, because it was never really about coupons. The Department applies the identical rule to discounts and rebates, and states the principle plainly: "The sales price of an item includes all consideration received by the retailer for that item. It is not limited to the amount paid by a customer." Wherever somebody other than the shopper is making you whole, the register should be working from the pre-discount number.
A tax holiday reads like something the state does to shoppers while retailers stand and watch. For one month it is closer to a change in the rules your point-of-sale system runs under, and whatever that system got wrong is yours to find and yours to pay. This is Florida sales tax. It is not a federal income tax rule.
The exemption follows the money you actually keep, not the number the customer sees on the tag.
Sources: Florida DOR Tax Information Publication 26A01-11, "Annual Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday, July 20, 2026, Through August 20, 2026," issued 07/01/2026 - https://floridarevenue.com/taxes/tips/Documents/TIP_26A01-11.pdf · dealer liability for uncollected tax: Fla. Stat. § 212.07(2) - http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0200-0299/0212/Sections/0212.07.html · statutory authority cited in the TIP: Section 27, Chapter 2026-239, Laws of Florida; Rule 12A-1.117, Florida Administrative Code