Preparing for hurricane season with Florida sales tax holiday

Author: Camila Pereira
Published: Updated:

It’s time to shop until you drop, but it’s not your everyday kind of shopping.

With the start of the 2024 hurricane season, it’s time to prepare for any upcoming storms.

Right now, hurricane readiness supplies are sales tax-free.

“When storms are announced, things tend to fly off the shelf very quickly,” said Jay Thomas, an assistant manager at Lowe’s. “We run out of generators, very fast, storm shutters, all the fasteners you need to hang them. It’s important to have those things to keep your family safe.”

From large, expensive items like portable generators, to small items like batteries, even dog and cat food; They’re all exempt from sales taxes from now until June 14.

so far, people have been taking advantage of the sales.

“Picked up like 4 or 5 fuel cans like two years ago when the tax holiday was on, and I’m hoping to grab one or two more just to stock up outside of that.” said customer Patrick Sheehan.

“Oh we plan early,” said customer Kathy Harter. “And my husband just texted me the other day, ‘Do we have extra dog food?’ Because we have four big dogs. And so, we have to buy extra.”

Many customers said other important items they think should have been exempt, were not.

“I don’t know if they take into consideration. You know, everything you might need for a tax-free holiday like this. But definitely, air conditioners is something that you would want to have,” said Thomas. “The power goes out, you’re not going to be able to run your whole house on a backup generator like this.”

Sheehan agreed with him.

“I think in today’s day and age, that should just be a standard across the board at this point. I don’t it’s kind of silly that it’s not considering our region,” said Sheehan.

The disaster preparedness sales tax holiday runs until June 14.

If you miss it – it’s not too late to still save on supplies this hurricane season.

A second exemption period will be held from Saturday, August 24 to Friday, September 6.

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