BJ’s Wholesale Club is under attack from a new consumer watchdog class action suit brought against their sales tax practices in regard to calculations. One woman bought a television on sale and claims the sales tax was incorrectly calculated. But what’s important to note in this case is that lawsuits like this are happening more and more across the country.

Consumers Firing Back with Sales Tax Lawsuits

More and more, consumers are taking a stand against what they feel are aggressive and unjust behaviors on the part of businesses across the country. We live in an era where things like authenticity and honesty are prized above things like efficiency and price point. For some consumers, that means taking action to “teach” retailers a lesson when they aren’t meeting customer expectations of playing by their rules.

In years past, the only audits retailers had to worry about were run by state officials. Audits are a headache and can end up costing your company a lot of time and money. But today, your business is being audited every time you complete a transaction.

Customers are savvier today than in the past and are more likely to check into sales tax, evidenced by the increasing number of these sales tax lawsuits. There are tons of free resources for them to use to find out whether you charged the right sales tax amount. And it might not even cost them anything to sue you, increasing the likelihood that your company could suffer through a sales tax calculation lawsuit.

Combat Against Consumer Sales Tax Lawsuits

While some experts say that these lawsuits are frivolous, they are certainly on the rise. Other retailers have been targeted with these same kinds of lawsuits, including Walmart, Whole Foods, and Target. Even if a lawsuit is frivolous, there are still costs associated with it that your company might have to stomach just to overcome consumer pushback. And that’s never good for business.

How can you combat these kinds of sales tax class action suits? Self-audit regularly. It’s not as difficult and time-consuming as in the past with new sales tax technologies that make it fast and easy to do each and every time you file. It makes it easy to clean up mistakes like sales tax calculation errors and saves your company time and money wasted on unnecessary legal work.

Don’t have the time or staff to self-audit? We can help with outsourcing or identify the issues you need to focus on quickly and efficiently so you can get back to doing business.

 

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