Great news for back-toschool shoppers. For the first time since it began in 1999, the annual August sales tax holiday will include many school supplies.

"A lot of families look forward to saving their hard-earned money during the sales tax holiday weekend, " Texas Comptroller Susan Combs said. "Now they can make their backto school budgets stretch even further because more than two dozen school supply items will be tax-free."

House Bill 1801 identifies school supplies priced less than $100 that will be exempt from state and local sales tax for the taxfree weekend. Pens, crayons, calculators, notebooks, rulers, scissors and lunch boxes are a few of the items on the list. The full list can be found below.

These items are in addition to school backpacks and most clothing and shoes priced less than $100 that are already taxfree the weekend of Aug. 21-23.

The comptroller's office is sending information to retailers about implementing the expanded sales tax holiday.

Tax-Free School Supplies: Binders Blackboard chalk Book bags Calculators Cellophane tape Compasses Composition books Crayons Erasers Folders (expandable, pocket, plastic, manila) Glue, paste and paste sticks Highlighters Index cards Index card boxes Legal pads Lunch boxes Markers Notebooks Paper (loose leaf ruled notebook paper, copy paper, graph paper, tracing paper, manila paper, colored paper, poster board, construction paper) Pencil boxes and other school supply boxes Pencil sharpeners Pencils Pens Protractors Rulers Scissors Writing tablets