Holiday shopping in the district

There are a couple of great holiday shopping places to go in the city especially if you’re trying to go someplace unique and find that perfect gift for the hard-to-shop person on your list. It all starts on December 1 with the Holiday Market in Georgetown and continues through until Christmas with the National Museum of Women in the Arts Annual Gift Market and wraps up with the Downtown Holiday Market near the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery. Other markets include shopping fun at Union Square and the National Museum of the American Indian.

Restaurant Week set to return on January 14

Everyone’s favorite time to check out some of the cuisine at some of the city’s best restaurants is back and will happen from January 14-20 with lunches costing you $20.08 and dinners $30.08. Check out the latest updates and complete list of participating restaurants at www.restaurantweekdc.org.

Dining is easy in DC with OpenTable

The folks over at the Washington, DC tourism office have put together a cool display of restaurants in the city that are part of the OpenTable network that you might be interested if you’re planning on going to visit in the near future. With this site, you can check out the different types of cuisine going on in the city, see if there’s any availability when you want to eat, and look at where it is on a map in relation to your hotel, your convention, or where you’ll be with your friends and/or family.

Travel + Leisure magazine has called DC “one of the most exciting restaurant cities on the Eastern Seaboard…” Check out the listing and see how internationalized it is – there’s definitely something for everyone and will easily soothe your appetite.

The National Christmas Tree is selected

CNN covered the selection of the National Christmas Tree that will be on display on the South Lawn of the White House which is to be lit on December 6. With specific requirements that must be met in order to be selected the National Christmas Tree, this tree from Laurel Springs, North Carolina was lucky to be selected and is now being prepped for delivery to the nation’s capital for this year’s holiday celebration. You can view the video on CNN by clicking here.

Get your spending on with the DC Sales Tax Holiday

This is from the city’s Office of Taxes and Revenue:

The District government will have its sales tax holiday beginning 12:01 am Friday, November 23, through midnight Sunday, December 2. During the tax holiday, shoppers will be exempt from the District’s 5.75 percent sales tax. Specific items include clothes, shoes, and accessory items that cost $100 or less.

The sales tax exemption applies to each eligible item regardless of how many items are sold on the same bill to a customer. It also applies to layaway sales, if the retailer and customer enter into a layaway agreement or the customer makes the final payment on the layaway order during the exemption period.

Retailers who use the Sales-and-Use tax forms for filing their monthly or annual tax returns should enter the total amount of tax exempted because of the Sales Tax Holiday, along with any other exempt taxes on the sales tax portion of the return (line no. 13). Retailers are also encouraged to clearly state in their records the type of item sold and the sales price of tax-exempt merchandise sold during the Sales Tax Holiday period.

For more information about the Sales Tax Holiday, the public and businesses should call the Customer Service Center at (202) 727-4TAX (4829) or visit OTR’s website at www.taxpayerservicecenter.com under “Sales Tax Holiday.”