For those unfamiliar with Canadian Tire, it is the Canadian equivalent to Home Depot or Lowe’s. Canadian Tire my whole life has this program in place, where they give you Canadian Tire dollars (5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents, $1) bills for each purchase. You can build a fairly big stack of these Canadian Tire bills, which may equate to $20. For a while now, Canadian Tire had a stand of sausages in the checkout line. I decided to try one and fell in love with the chipotle flavor in particular.
The problem being is that Canadian Tire was charging taxes, when in fact, jerky and sausages are tax free in Canada. Taxation all depends on the individual state or province. Since 2008, this charging taxes illegally on jerky has been a huge pet peeve of mine. I have had countless arguments over this topic with many businesses over the years in multiple states and provinces, sometimes quite heated. If anyone should know if jerky/sausages/biltong/meat sticks are taxable, it should be me. My view is that if a company is ripping off consumers by charging taxes illegally, what other nefarious practices are they doing to their customers.
Complaining to the cashier about taxes is useless, as they are just cashiers. I officially emailed Canadian Tire to lodge a complaint, threatening that they had 30 days to comply or lose a lifelong customer. My complaint was addressed promptly by Canadian Tire customer service, where they asked me for the product code on the receipt and told me that this complaint was forwarded to their Commodity Tax Division. I never did save the receipt, and about two weeks later, I purchased another bag. To my surprise, taxes were not charged this time. Kudos to Canadian Tire for addressing this taxation problem in a prompt fashion. Your welcome Canada 🙂
My only tool to tackle companies illegally charging taxes is to boycott the business. One example is a local gas station close to my old house. I complained in person to them several times, never getting anywhere with managers. I then boycotted them for 15+ years despite being the closest gas station to my old house. I suggest others do the same. Jerky is tax free across all Canadian provinces but there are some USA states where jerky is indeed taxable.
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