First IVU holiday for school supplies is this weekend
By The Star Staff
The period in which consumers will be able to buy school supplies and uniforms free of sales taxes is slated for next weekend, July 15 and July 16, Treasury Secretary Francisco Parés Alicea said Monday.
A second period for buying school supplies tax-free is slated for mid-January 2023, he said.
The Treasury chief said Internal Revenue Administrative Memo 22-10 establishes “the two sales periods for uniforms and certain school supplies for the return to school for fiscal year 2022-2023.”
“The two weekends in which families will be able to buy uniforms and materials without paying the IVU [the Spanish acronym for sales and use tax] will be this Friday, July 15 and Saturday, July 16 for the first semester and Friday, January 13 and Saturday, January 14, 2023, for the second school semester,” he said.
“Both sales periods will begin at 12 midnight on Friday and end at 11:59 p.m. Saturday,” Parés Alicea added. “The items that will be exempted from the payment of the sales and use tax will be uniforms and school materials included in the administrative memo available at the link https://hacienda.pr.gov/publicaciones/carta-circular-de-rentas-internas-num-22- 10-cc-ri-22-10.”
Uniforms include clothing specifically required by the educational institution and cannot be used for general or continuous use as a substitute for ordinary clothing. Pieces of clothing and footwear that complement them are also considered part of the uniform.
Belt buckles sold separately, costume masks, patches and emblems sold separately are not included, except if they are part of the uniform. Also to be exempted: sewing equipment and articles such as needles, pins and patterns; sewing materials such as buttons, fabrics, thread and yarn; accessories such as briefcases, cosmetics, hair items, jewelry or sunglasses; and protective equipment to be used against injury or illness, such as masks, sterile room clothing, protective helmets or seat belts, among others.
Sports or recreational equipment such as sneakers, sports shoes with hooks, sports gloves, roller skates or shoulder pads, among others, will not be exempted from the IVU.
Meanwhile, materials that will be exempted from paying the IVU will be school, art, music, or instructional materials purchased at retail, as well as computer storage media, including compact discs and flash drives.
Some items regularly used by students such as folders, school bags, calculators, tape, chalk, compasses, crayons, erasers, expandable folders including accordion type, and plastic and manila envelopes are also exempted.
Also included are glue, stickers, markers, index cards and storage boxes, lunch boxes, loose and lined paper, copy paper, grid paper, tracing paper, colored paper, construction paper, pencils and pencil cases, along with other materials such as pencil sharpeners, pens, protractors, rulers and scissors.
Materials for art and music disciplines, and other instructional materials that will be exempted include clay and glazes; acrylic, tempera, watercolor and oil paints; brushes; drawing and sketchbooks; musical instruments; and reference maps and globes .
The Internal Revenue Code also provides that all printed and electronic books (digital books, cyberbooks or ‘e-books’) are exempted from paying the IVU throughout the year, as well as notebooks purchased at retail, regardless of the size.
Purchases under installment plans (layaway), with vouchers, by mail, telephone, email or internet, as well as gift certificates and cards, will qualify for the exemption, as long as the final payment is made during the exemption period established in Internal Revenue Administrative Memo 22-10.