Watch Out for Early Sales Tax | Video

By: Rene Thibault | 1/29/2013

Shoppers should be on the lookout for Ward County businesses that may have jumped the gun on a new sales tax.

During the November 6th elections, voters approved a new one-half cent sales tax for the county. The money from that tax is being used to upgrade the courthouse and enhance the jail. But, that sales tax is not supposed to go into effect until April 1st. The time between January 1st and March 31st was meant as a period for businesses to prepare their stores for the change, “When the bill said beginning January 1st, that`s the process we began. So the 1st quarter is basically so people can call in their programmers, update any of the software that need to be upgraded for computers, cash registers, etc”, said Devra Smestad, the Auditor for Ward County.

Smestad went on to say that businesses that may have already started using that sales tax should try to refund customers the difference on their purchases and stop charging the tax until April 1st.

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