A Tacoma Safeway was charging 16-20 percent sales tax. Here’s how to get your money back.
If you’ve shopped at the Tacoma Safeway on Sixth Avenue in recent weeks, you may want to check your receipts.
Safeway has told its Tacoma customers they can seek refunds for a sales tax overcharge after an attentive shopper spotted the mistake on multiple receipts from earlier in the month.
Tairsa Worman, public affairs manager for the grocer, told The News Tribune via email Monday that “We apologize for this unfortunate glitch, and customers can take their receipts to their local stores for a refund on the overcharged sales tax.”
Rick Hammel of Tacoma told The News Tribune on Monday that he was charged sales tax amounts that ranged from 16 percent to 20 percent during different visits to the Safeway store formerly in the Highland Hill Shopping Center on Sixth Avenue.
After contacting the state Department of Revenue, he discovered the actual total tax rate for that location is 10.2 percent.
“I gathered up all my receipts and went back last Wednesday, and asked to speak to the manager and told him my concern. “Oh yeah, we have had a glitch, we had a problem,’ “ he said the store representative told him.
His refund amounted to “like $5 or so,” he said. “It’s no big deal. But I’m thinking of everyone else, with buggy loads of merchandise, during and up until I was in there.
“That adds up quite a bit,” he added.
The store launched a weeks-long going-out-of-business sale after announcing in August its planned closure Sept. 19. Safeway has since eliminated the store on its directory of listings.
Neither Safeway nor the state Department of Revenue offered any more details on the overcharged sales tax, how many were affected or the actual dates the overcharge occurred.
The Department of Revenue offers information on seeking consumer sales tax refunds if a customer is unable to get one from a retailer. For more information, go to bit.ly/2ZX5dOK
Earlier this year, a customer reported a sales tax overcharge at an area Dollar Tree store in Key Peninsula, which then corrected its own glitch.
In that instance, Beverly Crichfield, communications consultant with the Department of Revenue, told The News Tribune via email:
“If customers don’t ask for a refund of the overcollected amount from the business, then the business must return the over-collected amount to the state.
“If we identify businesses that do not do this, we will assess them for unreported sales tax.”
To check the local tax rate in your area, go to Washington’s Tax Rate Lookup Tool.
This story was originally published September 22, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
