Taking Galleria shopping in Houston, Texas as an example, the details of the tax refund for shopping in the United States are as follows:
1. Overview: Based on the principles of trust, trust, equality and reasonableness, the United States has formulated a tax refund system for goods that foreigners shop before leaving the country and take out of the United States for use. It is required to go through the relevant formalities with the departure ticket (including the transit ticket in the United States), my passport, the purchased goods and the bills of the purchased goods, and then get the tax refund for the purchased goods within 3~7 months after leaving the country.
The date on the shopping list must be within 29 days before departure.
3. The tax refund should reach 10 USD (the shopping tax in Houston is 8.25%, that is, the purchased items should be at least 125 USD). Shopping must be paid by your own credit card or purchased in cash. Hotel, supermarket, car rental and other consumption can not be refunded. The goods you buy must be taken away by plane.
4. Individuals or shops can't apply for tax refund alone, so they must have the help of the relevant tax refund agencies (contact the exit administration department of the United States regularly to determine whether the tax refund person really leaves the country on time), and the tax refund agencies will charge a handling fee of about 33% of the tax (pay cash on the spot). That is, in fact, only 5.50% of the shopping tax can be refunded.
5. A person can only apply for an exit tax refund once when leaving the country. When showing the departure ticket, passport, purchased goods (including complete packaging) and bills of purchased goods to the staff of the handling institution for inspection, the tax refund handling officer suggested that I should collect the purchased goods within 1 month before departure and go to the handling institution for handling a few days before departure. After checking the goods, the staff of the tax refund agency copies the ticket and passport, and then fills in the form of "Attention foreign shoppers, refund your state sales tax" and signs it into effect. ("You and only you" means that you don't have to be checked at the airport to see if the goods refunded are around and leave the country together, which is very different from the idea of tax refund in Europe. )
6. Get the tax refund: After the tax refund agency verifies and confirms, the store will refund the tax received from you to yourself. There are three kinds of tax rebates: cash, checks and traveler's checks. You can withdraw cash by visa card or Master card (debit card is not available), and the check will be sent to you by post office. But it was all done within 3~7 months after you left the country. (This is actually different. The tax refund agency will say: only visa card or Master card can be used, but I don't have these cards, so I have to write down the card number of an American friend and transfer the money. )
7. Store requirements: Shops that shop must be shops that can apply for tax refund. References:
/local experts