A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Sales Tax Exemption

Rainwater Harvesting. Water reuse. These are categories that the State of Texas placed into tax-exempt status in 2001.

HERE is the form you will need to flash at your tank vendor or Tractor Supply Company or wherever you are purchasing equipment solely to direct water from rain harvest to storage.

ALSO GOOD FOR eliminating tax on:

"Water collection surface area not used as a roof or storage (shed) area" - I think of corrugated plastic and TCLynx's RainSaucers here;
"Water recycling and reuse - chemicals, tanks and cisterns, and water recycling systems for washing machines." - hey, this lets in all the Laundry-To-Landscape pipe, diverter valves, vacuum breakers... I'd say "Chemicals" could let in the special sodium-free detergent but I Am Not An Attorney;
"Reduction or elimination of water use - water dams for toilets, timers attached to sprinkler systems..."
"Desalination of surface water or groundwater - cleaning and pickling valves, filters, membranes..."

NOT INCLUDED would be "items that do not meet the 'sole-purpose' test, such as water-efficient appliances, pumps for fountains... tools used for landscaping or lawn care..."

But yeah. Tanks for rainwater can run into the hundreds of dollars, this'll save you the sales tax on such a purchase.

My Squeeze Page gives this form for free as an incentive for signing up on my Water mailing list. Yeah, that's my famous Saturn in the picture! With the Rubbermaid stock tank that's now my growbed biofilter!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rick Stillwagon on September 23, 2011 at 3:54pm

And here in Washington where we get rain 9-10 months out of the year, they want to tax us for collecting rainwater....

Permalink Reply by Debra Davenport on September 23, 2011 at 5:31pm

You do not need to print this form for TSC, they will ask you questions at the store and you will be in their computer. As long as you are in the computer you are tax exempt at all stores.

Permalink Reply by Debra Davenport on September 23, 2011 at 5:32pm

Some states do not allow the collection of rainwater, claiming the rain belongs to the state and not a personal 'item'.

Rick Stillwagon said:

And here in Washington where we get rain 9-10 months out of the year, they want to tax us for collecting rainwater....

Permalink Reply by Rick Op on September 24, 2011 at 8:51am

Truue, and actually they put you under "Agricultural" since their system has no button for "Conservation."

Anyone know what other states have exemptions / forms? I'd love to add more states / links to my website...

Rick

Debra Davenport said:

You do not need to print this form for TSC, they will ask you questions at the store and you will be in their computer. As long as you are in the computer you are tax exempt at all stores.

Permalink Reply by Rick Op on September 24, 2011 at 8:53am

And yeah, I know the TCLynx store is out-of-state and won't tax you anyway...

Permalink Reply by Eldon Stanford on September 25, 2011 at 2:01pm

after jan 1 you now in texas you need tax emept no. in texas to buy ag product tax free in texas

Permalink Reply by Debra Davenport on September 25, 2011 at 4:16pm

Eldon, I do not think they have put a start time on it but I have head alot about this. How do you get this number? Seems as if no one knows how that I have spoke with.

Permalink Reply by Eldon Stanford on September 25, 2011 at 9:24pm

http://http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/agriculture/ here a link from texas

Permalink Reply by Debra Davenport on September 26, 2011 at 8:15pm

Thank you Eldon. Yea, more paperwork for the government lol.

Permalink Reply by Rick Op on October 6, 2011 at 9:01am

City of Houston Water Works is now billing for handling rain runoff. Based on roof and concrete area that creates runoff to storm drains. You know, I can't really argue against this... Better to get it back into the ground (or better still an aquaponic system of course).

So. I am going to 1) spruce up my catchment (try to get as close as I can to 100% of roof water) and my swales that slow down / absorb rain-tank overflow and what falls direct on the yard, and come up with something better than what the driveway now does.

Then 2) draw up a nice earnest readable report of the mitigations I have put in place, indicating the reduction in runoff. There is a place to submit appeals for reduction of the runoff charge and I'd like to test it out. The charge is not a huge amount by any means, but I could see someone with a large roof area or parking, or both, considering improving their runoff footprint and getting it officially recognized/rewarded.

Does this need a separate discussion thread?

Permalink Reply by Debra Davenport on October 7, 2011 at 7:45pm

Rick, I agree that one can not argue with what Houston is doing but it also is not a fee one wants to pay if they do not need to!! Just think, if it is as small as $10/month and you multiple that times the homes in Houston, well they are making alot of money on rain. Makes you wonder, are they praying for rain for their personal benefit or for the city to make more money lol.

I live on a ranch and with the out buildings we have and barn and soon our 30x96' green house we have a total of 16 buildings that we can set up to collect rain water. We are not set up at this time but really want/need to get to collecting on this.