Another update to give the DEVS more info:

Fresh install of 1.3.9a
No tax exempt module installed.
Tax set to display even when 0

Result:
No description appears, only ":$0.00"


1.3.8a having the same same settings with tax set to display even when 0 correctly shows description as "Sales Tax: $0.00". Seems like from 1.3.8a to 1.3.9a some bug fixes on the Tax calculation may have broken something.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for helping Rod. Right now am doing upgrade testing and am stuck because of this which would be a problem on our wholesale site.