Some Sapulpa Businesses Charging Too Much Sales Tax By Mistake

Check your receipts! The Oklahoma Tax Commission said some stores in Sapulpa have been charging extra sales tax by accident. It happened after a vote to increase taxes in one part of town - but not the other. 

Sapulpa is the only city in the entire state with a situation like this where one part of town has one sales tax amount and the other part has another.  A vote to increase the sales tax by half a percent in the part of Sapulpa in Tulsa County has some businesses charging too much. 

The city is located mainly in Creek County where the sales tax is 9.5 percent, but a small portion off Interstate 44 called "Town West" is actually in Tulsa County where the sales tax was recently increased to 4.5 percent.

Last week a constituent brought the problem to State House Rep Mark Lawson who then contacted the Oklahoma Tax Commission.

"They had some companies that just took it at face value and made the changes electronically and then they would upload in the Creek County portion of Sapulpa when it should have been the Tulsa County portion only," said Representative Mark Lawson.

"This is the first time it's ever happened in state history. Sapulpa is the only city that now has two tax rates and so it caught the tax commission off guard a little bit."
 
But the process of solving the problem may not be easy because they don't know how many businesses have made the mistake.
 
"We're not trying to call anyone individually; it was an honest mistake," Lawson said.
 
"The goal is to actually make sure that each business is charging the right amount and that process is going to take a little bit of time."
 
Lawson says he knows of a handful of businesses that the commission is working with right now but says shoppers need to pay attention.

If you've paid 10 percent in sales tax in Sapulpa contact Representative Lawson or the Oklahoma Tax Commission to let them know where it happened.