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I'm traveling in the US (originally from Australia) and buying a few things like shoes etc and a friend said I might be able to claim the tax back on my purchases. Does anyone know if this is right and if so how do I go about doing this?

Cheers

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possible duplicate of How to get a tax refund for purchase Apple Mac Accessories? – Karlson May 27 '12 at 12:57
2  
It's a state by state thing. There is no federal VAT tax that you have in most other countries. – Karlson May 27 '12 at 12:58
Perhaps merging of these two questions. Otherwise, campo, please include which state your question is about. – rlesko May 27 '12 at 13:40
California mostly I'd like to claim tax back on. Thanks everyone!! – campo May 27 '12 at 17:25

1 Answer

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There are no state tax refunds to tourists in any of the US States except for Louisiana. In Louisiana there's a similar to the European "Tax Fee" program in effect, and tax refund can be done in the New Orleans airport or by mail for qualified purchases.

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Even the Louisiana program is only if you are catching an international flight directly out of Louisiana. ie, not connecting at another airport in the US. Last I looked there weren't too many flights from Louisiana to Australia :) – Doc May 28 '12 at 6:10
@Doc you can get refund by mail, though. – littleadv May 28 '12 at 6:11
@littleadv Please take a look at the question I linked. There is such thing as Sales Tax Refund it is done differently then in countries with VAT. – Karlson May 28 '12 at 19:30
@Karlson your answer there is wrong. – littleadv May 29 '12 at 0:13
@littleadv Care to elaborate? – Karlson May 29 '12 at 14:02
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