www.roanoke.com

It may be the peak of summer vacation, but it's not too soon to start thinking about the school year. Especially if you're concerned that back-to-school shopping will stretch your household budget.

From Friday through Sunday, Virginia will suspend the 5 percent sales tax on selected back-to-school purchases. It applies to school supplies valued at $20 or less and clothing valued at $100 or less.

Holding off on a 5 percent tax may not at first seem like a big break. But consider that the average family with school-age children will spend almost $600 on back-to-school shopping, according to the National Retail Federation.

The Virginia Department of Taxation has adopted a relatively broad definition of school supplies. A partial list, available on the department's Web site, includes items such as binders, book bags, chalk, lunchboxes, rulers, scissors, sheet music and paper.

If you have no connection to schools but need these items anyway, you're in luck. The tax holiday still applies to you.

The picture gets a little more confusing when you start looking at clothing. Shirts, pants, dresses and sports jerseys are tax-free.

But how about purchases of suits and wedding veils? Also tax-free.

And cleats, mouth guards or shin pads for students' extracurricular athletics? Those are taxed.

Hairnets, makeup, umbrellas, sunglasses and watches are also not included in the sales-tax holiday because tax officials consider them "accessories" rather than clothing.

Joel Davison, a spokesman for the Department of Taxation, said state officials conferred with retail organizations and major retailers to determine what gets taxed and what doesn't.

"You have to draw the line somewhere," he said. "I couldn't tell you why wedding veils are on there. I guess they figured women who are getting married could use it."

Computers are also not eligible for the sales-tax holiday but you're not likely to find a computer for $100 or less anyway. Still, lawmakers allowed retailers to voluntarily absorb the sales tax on items that are not included on the Department of Taxation's list during the tax holiday weekend. The rest of the year, that particular form of generosity on the retailers' part is illegal.

This will be Virginia's third back-to-school sales-tax holiday. Other states, such as Georgia and Florida, have similar holidays.

A study conducted by the Virginia Retail Merchants Association found that August sales increased 33 percent after the sales-tax holiday was first put in place, according to Laurie Aldrich, the group's president.

Davison predicts Virginia consumers will save about $4 million this weekend, up from $3.8 million last year.

Those figures are merely estimates, however. When lawmakers enacted the sales-tax holiday they didn't include a provision requiring retailers and tax officials to track the purchases, making it difficult to get an exact picture of the effect of tax-free weekends on shoppers.

"There's really no way to determine exactly what's been saved but we do expect people to pay attention this year especially because of the economy," Davison said.