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Today, I only bought groceries at Walmart and noticed that there is no tax on groceries in California (Google tells me that this is perhaps true for whole of the US?)

So far I have always paid tax at Walmart for my grocery purchases, but that also included items like crackers, shampoo etc

Did Walmart charge me then only for the items that were not groceries, or if your cart has groceries + non-grocery items, you get charged tax on all of them?

Or is this a policy that varies by store, or cashiers' knowledge/discretion, etc?

Would people recommend for me to break down a single mixed purchase into two: one only having groceries and the other with the rest, or is this being paranoid?

My grocery purchases, every two weeks, amount to around $100+. I pay 8.25% tax, so that is enough to get me free gas if I can figure this out!

George Marian
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f1StudentInUS
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4 Answers4

21

You do not need to separate your purchases. These things are handled by the point of sale (POS) system, not the cashiers. (That is, the cash register and related systems.)

This should be detailed on the receipt, with codes next to the items. On the receipts I received from Walmart it seems like this:

To the right of the item's price:

T or X means that it was taxed
N or O means that it was not taxed

Also, grocery items will have an F to the right of the item's (SKU?) number which appears in the center column.

Note that this is based on my interpretation of my receipts and the receipts may be different in California. Someone at Customer Service should be able to provide information on how to interpret the receipts.

George Marian
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11

Sales taxes are set on a state by state basis (or in some places, a locale by locale basis). So the types of 'groceries' you get taxed on will depend on where you are. I suspect most, if not all, exempt certain food purchases and basic necessities. But the actual cut-off between what is and isn't a basic necessity varies - some states tax clothing and some don't, for example.

When you are checking out with a mixed collection of taxed and non-taxed items, the tax you see is only on those items that are taxable. You don't need to manually separate them into two purchases.

Glorfindel
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GrandmasterB
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Typically, in a grocery store, there are distinctions between food and non-food. Non-food items for the most part are taxed. Food items vary by state, with 'prepared foods' getting taxed. In NYC, for example, one might buy a bagel, nothing on it, (i.e. not a sandwich, no butter or cream cheese, etc.) but if it were sliced, it was deemed "prepared" and therefore taxed. This created quite a ruckus when it first was implemented.

JoeTaxpayer
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2

FWIW, here's a great example of Walmart receipt from another question. Highlights are from that question.

It certainly illustrates why it's confusing. The person was charged 10% tax on $45.20 worth of goods, but the ticket is only $18.50. It appears the difference is coupons; the item is taxed at full value and the value of the coupon does not remove the tax.

enter image description here

Community
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Harper - Reinstate Monica
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