when is the annual ikea no-tax sale?

April 11, 2008 11:08 AM

does anyone know when ikea has their no-tax sale?

we are planning to remodel our kitchen this summer with ikea cabinets. i've heard there are no-tax sales, but haven't been able to figure out when... we'd like to be prepared to order the cabinets when the sale happens since its a big purchase, but does anyone know when the sales are?

thanks for your help!

posted by dityfleur to Home & Garden (11 answers total)

Are you thinking of state-wide tax holidays, when a state will announce a day with no sales tax to try to give a little jolt to the economy? Those tend to be announced on short notice, since announcing them too far ahead of time would prevent people from making any big purchases until that day.
posted by fogster at 11:20 AM on April 11, 2008

No idea where you're located, but if you're anywhere near the store in Elizabeth, NJ, I believe it's tax free all the time.
posted by inigo2 at 11:34 AM on April 11, 2008

Reduced but not free. It's 3% (instead of 7%) due to being in the Urban Enterprise Zone in Elizabeth.
posted by smackfu at 11:38 AM on April 11, 2008

Sometimes stores will have a "no tax" sale where they pay all the sales tax for you. I feel like the government might object, so I have this crazy idea that they have to lower their prices until the sale price plus the tax on that lower price matches the original sale price... But I might have made that up. Either way, I'm just chiming in to say that these kinds of sales do happen. I don't know when or if IKEA does them, though.
posted by vytae at 11:39 AM on April 11, 2008

Response by poster: i am in washington...
posted by dityfleur at 11:42 AM on April 11, 2008

googling "ikea tax sale" suggests that in the past, the US Ikeas had a no-tax sale from April 15 -19th, in "celebration" of US Tax day. You could opt-in to their emails, which purport to notify you of upcoming sales... or just call/visit your local store and ask.
posted by mumkin at 11:48 AM on April 11, 2008

If you mean that you're in Washington state, you could come to the Portland store, where there's no tax (though technically you should pay tax for large-scale purchases if you're a Wash. resident, but I see lots of Washington license plates in the lot there, and I doubt they're checking... IANATaxL).
posted by lisa g at 11:58 AM on April 11, 2008

Yeah, the IKEA in Renton definitely has a "no tax sale" once a year, I think around tax time but I'm not sure. Why don't you just call them up?
posted by Enroute at 1:59 PM on April 11, 2008

To clarify: I'm pretty sure stores can't just decide to stop charging tax. That would be a (rare) government/regional phenomenon.
posted by amtho at 2:05 PM on April 11, 2008

New Mexico has "no sales tax" days for school supplies (which covers most office supplies, laptops, digital cameras) and clothing every August. Stores aren't even allowed to charge tax on these items on these days, but most of the store ads for this do their best to imply it's something special that's only happening at their store. No IKEA here though -- so if I wanted to mail order some IKEA cabinets, I wouldn't be paying any tax -- thus, a "no-tax" sale.
posted by yohko at 4:09 PM on April 11, 2008

Yeah, no, the lack of tax is really just the equivalent of a drop in price the same percentage as the actual tax. Purchases in Europe don't get tax added to them, but that doesn't mean there's no tax, just that the tax has been precalculated into the sales price.
posted by Phire at 6:31 AM on April 12, 2008