Expansion of Ohio sales-tax holiday for 2024 adds restaurant meals to annual exemption
All that shopping during Ohio's upcoming 10-day sales-tax holiday is bound to make you hungry. For the first time this year, the annual temporary exemption will extend to dining tabs, as well.
This year's sales-tax holiday is scheduled from midnight on July 30 through 11:59 p.m. on Aug. 8.
A provision in the new state budget adds more tax-free days to the calendar for Ohioans and more purchases to their tax-free list. What started as a late-summer weekend tax break for purchases of moderately priced children's clothes and back-to-school supplies now will include a host of eligible items.
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How will the holiday work in restaurants, you may ask?
Restaurants charge sales taxes on food that's eaten on their premises, not on food that's ordered at a drive-thru or for carryout or delivery. Alcoholic beverages and soft drinks are taxed.
That means the sales-tax holiday will apply only to dine-in meals and a can or bottle of pop you might add to your carryout pizza order. Again, beer, wine and cocktails will be taxed even during the exemption period.
"I hope once word gets out ... people might look at it as a reason to go out for dinner," said Patrick Marker, co-owner of Alqueria, a University District farm-to-table restaurant.
At Alqueria, where a typical dinner for two — charcuterie, an arugula salad, the Brussels sprouts starter and entrees of pan-seared scallops and a quinoa and lentil bowl — comes to $146, diners would be spared an extra $10.95 in sales taxes levied by the state, Franklin County and the Central Ohio Transit Authority.
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The Ohio Department of Taxation says the sales-tax waiver will apply individually to food items on a diner's restaurant tab, so even if the bill adds up to more than $500, each individual item will go untaxed as long as it's less than $500. (We've been unable to locate any item or dish on a Columbus menu that's anywhere close to $500, although some caviars and seafood towers are listed at unspecified "market price.")
According to guidance sent to restaurants by Columbus Independents, an association of more than 30 local owners, buy-one, get-one deals can't be averaged to bring both items under the $500 threshold, but items will qualify for the sales-tax waiver if a discount, coupon or loyalty-card program brings their individual cost below $500.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio adds restaurant meals to breaks for its annual sales-tax holiday
