While Wal-Mart has prevailed in a lawsuit over its charging of sales tax on items purchased with a coupon, a Murrysville consumer advocate who filed the action said she will take the issue to the state Legislature.
Murrysville District Judge Charles Conway ruled Tuesday in favor of the Delmont area Wal-Mart after Mary Bach claimed she was overcharged sales tax by the store on 12 occasions.
Bach said she was charged sales tax on the gross amount of an item rather than the reduced amount when a manufacturer's coupon was used.
During a hearing last week, she produced register receipts to back her claim, showing in one case she was charged the equivalent of 24 percent sales tax on the net price of an item rather than the 6 percent tax.
Conway did not issue an opinion with his ruling. But during the hearing, Wal-Mart attorney Sherill Moyer said the giant retailer follows state Department of Revenue guidelines.
Those regulations state that a retailer can charge sales tax on the net price after a coupon is used if the retailer can link that coupon to the specific taxable item. Moyer said Wal-Mart's system does not do this and therefore must charge sales tax on the full price.
However, other retailers, including Target, Rite Aid and Family Dollar, charge sales tax based on the net price after a coupon is applied because their systems link the coupon and the item. A Department of Revenue spokeswoman said last week her department cannot force a retailer to do so.
Bach said she doesn't plan to appeal the ruling, but instead will take steps to close the "loophole" she sees in the regulations by asking legislators to revise the laws. She believes she won the case by alerting consumers to the discrepancies.
"It is a sad but true commentary that I had to take Wal-Mart to court to get them to fix a deceitful and profit-driven, sales-tax collection program that aims at charging more tax than is conventionally collected by the vast majority of retail merchants," Bach said.
"My repetitive complaints typically don't get their attention. Only my lawsuits do. I lost the court costs in this case, but (Wal-Mart) has lost thousands of coupon shopping customers and any false trust they maintained about Wal-Mart's integrity," she said.
A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said Conway's ruling reaffirms the company is following the law.
"We're pleased with the court's ruling," spokeswoman Ashley Hardie said. "As we've said all along, we've followed the law as it's written."
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