Point of sale rebates

In BC, if you haven't been looking at your cash register tapes, you might wonder if you bought certain products, why there's a 5% tax and a 12% tax on your cash register tape.

That's because there's a reduction called a "point-of-sale rebate" (click for more details) for certain limited types of items, a primary one being books and motor fuel.  Children's clothing and feminine hygiene products qualify too.

The store is allowed to either charge the full amount and then credit you back, or just charge the net 5%.

This morning I had someone email me that their mom had a cash register receipt from Wal-Mart that had both 5% and 12% on it and the store manager didn't want to explain why.  If they had done the math, they would have found tax on the books was not charged at 12%, but rather at 5%.