I bought the school stuff at CVS tonight (I did not see a posting here but they had 8 things free after ECB valid through today) and when I reused the ECB on a subsequent order, they scanned as CVS MFR COUPON, and they did not remove the tax as ones that scan as CVS COUPONS do (in New York, manufacturers coupons do not deduct the tax). At first I thought the cashier had screwed something up since I was having him reduce an $8 ECB by a few cents. But then he scanned smaller ones instead and they worked the same way. Needless to say, I am not happy. Is this happening everywhere? I am going to contact the Extracare people and see what the store is. I asked at another store and the cashier there said she had never heard of that.
billrubin said: I bought the school stuff at CVS tonight (I did not see a posting here but they had 8 things free after ECB valid through today) and when I reused the ECB on a subsequent order, they scanned as CVS MFR COUPON, and they did not remove the tax as ones that scan as CVS COUPONS do (in New York, manufacturers coupons do not deduct the tax). At first I thought the cashier had screwed something up since I was having him reduce an $8 ECB by a few cents. But then he scanned smaller ones instead and they worked the same way. Needless to say, I am not happy. Is this happening everywhere? I am going to contact the Extracare people and see what the store is. I asked at another store and the cashier there said she had never heard of that.
Bill,
I'm surprised it's lasted this long. To be honest, I never really expected the extra bucks to wipe out sales tax. For instance, when we did the Walgreens programs and got the rebate gift card, full sales tax was always charged on purchases so why not on extra bucks?
I guess the other issue is a significant loss of sales tax revenue for the state/cities. I must say I do feel the state/city should not be penalized tax revenue on extra bux purchases. If I can use my extra bucks to COVER the sales tax, that's fine and nice, but I don't really expect the gravy train of it wiping off the sales tax from the order to last, especially in the economic climate we are in now and states desperate to fill their piggy banks.
As far as I know, ECB is (or used to be) treated as a "store discount" which is not subject to sales tax. Their systems simply recognize these as dollar off sales just like any other sale items, which is also how most "store coupons" work. I would be very disappointed to see ECB being treated as mfg coupons.
Any ECBs you earned after a certain date will show up as CVS MFG Coupons when redeemed and will not reduce your tax. For me it seems that everything with an expiration date of Aug 18 or later is doing this. ECBs that expire before that still take away tax. So it was somewhere around July 19 (30 days before Aug 18) when this started. That's why it seems so random as people report it. Some people use ECBs right away and noticed it first, while others like me typically use them just before they expire and may not have experienced it yet. So it will soon be a thing of the past to get your OOP down near zero when using ECBs to buy taxable items.
This will reduce my shopping at CVS because I will stop doing some deals that are free after ECBs if the items are of no use to me because it won't be worth it to pay the tax. Same reason I do 0 deals at Walgreens. I refuse to pay even 1 cent for toothpaste since I have hundreds of tubes already.
Interesting.. it was definitely my newly generated ECB that were working this way. I just called the CVS Extracare people and the guy said he was not aware of any changes. He did point out that the product-specific Extrabucks are funded by the manufacturer, and while he did not say it, that would make sense for them to be treated as manufacturer's coupons. But it sure makes the program less attractive.
zmaster said: Any ECBs you earned after a certain date will show up as CVS MFG Coupons when redeemed and will not reduce your tax. For me it seems that everything with an expiration date of Aug 18 or later is doing this. ECBs that expire before that still take away tax. So it was somewhere around July 19 (30 days before Aug 18) when this started. That's why it seems so random as people report it. Some people use ECBs right away and noticed it first, while others like me typically use them just before they expire and may not have experienced it yet. So it will soon be a thing of the past to get your OOP down near zero when using ECBs to buy taxable items.
This will reduce my shopping at CVS because I will stop doing some deals that are free after ECBs if the items are of no use to me because it won't be worth it to pay the tax. Same reason I do 0 deals at Walgreens. I refuse to pay even 1 cent for toothpaste since I have hundreds of tubes already.
but can't you simply factor in the tax as part of the spend and still pay with the extra bucks to cover the sales tax sort of how you'd use a gift card to pay for the sales tax on the old Walgreens easy saver rebates?
MISTERCHEAP said: but can't you simply factor in the tax as part of the spend and still pay with the extra bucks to cover the sales tax sort of how you'd use a gift card to pay for the sales tax on the old Walgreens easy saver rebates?I always figured the 10% bonus covered the sales tax with WG. There's no 10% bonus with ECB.
billrubin said: <snip> But it sure makes the program less attractive.
Uh, no. It certainly won't be driving me away just having to pay sales tax. I have a basement full of stockpile thanks to CVS, plus plenty of cash in my wallet from moneymaker items and selling items on CL.
billrubin said: MISTERCHEAP said: but can't you simply factor in the tax as part of the spend and still pay with the extra bucks to cover the sales tax sort of how you'd use a gift card to pay for the sales tax on the old Walgreens easy saver rebates?I always figured the 10% bonus covered the sales tax with WG. There's no 10% bonus with ECB.
you're missing my question Bill...ok an example.
With the Walgreens gift card, if you bought a $10 item with 7% sales tax it was 10.70. If you had $25 loaded on the Walgreens gift card, you could simply swipe it and $10.70 was deducted so you could use the gift card to handle the sales tax as well.
Same scenario now in the new CVS world with ECB's not deducting sales tax.
You have a $10 ECB and buy an item for $9.50 plus 7% tax (.66). Your total is $10.16 and you have a $10 extra buck. Will the $10 cover the sales tax (all except. 16) or will it beep because you only spent $9.50 and have to pay the .66 totally out of pocket?
that's what I'm trying to determine in this new set up.
No, the ECB does not pay for the sales tax. If you have a $1.07 total which is 99c purchase and 8c sales tax, and you have a $1 ECB, the ECB will beep and have to be reduced to 99c, and you will still owe 8c. I had this when I tried to use an $8 ECB that I was a few cents short on, and after the cashier reduced it to the pre-tax total, I still owed around 60c.
You end up out of pocket in real money (or gift card if you have one) to pay the sales tax.
billrubin said: No, the ECB does not pay for the sales tax. If you have a $1.07 total which is 99c purchase and 8c sales tax, and you have a $1 ECB, the ECB will beep and have to be reduced to 99c, and you will still owe 8c. I had this when I tried to use an $8 ECB that I was a few cents short on, and after the cashier reduced it to the pre-tax total, I still owed around 60c.
You end up out of pocket in real money (or gift card if you have one) to pay the sales tax.
ok thanks. that does stink on items you could care less about, but still worth it for items you do really want I guess.
billrubin said: I bought the school stuff at CVS tonight (I did not see a posting here but they had 8 things free after ECB valid through today)Thread from May 30; someone named billrubin replied to the post.
NoMoneyInMyWallet said: billrubin said: I bought the school stuff at CVS tonight (I did not see a posting here but they had 8 things free after ECB valid through today)Thread from May 30; someone named billrubin replied to the post. Fine, I did not see a RECENT posting here. Now I am sure you can find a thread in Hot Deals with the weekly ad with recent discussions (since it appears hat drug store deals are being posted to HD these days).
billrubin said: Fine, I did not see a RECENT posting here. Lighten up, Bill. I just thought it was ironic, since you posted in the thread. Been there, done that. Someone asks me about a program and I say I know nothing about it. They reply ... but, you were the last person to change it.
MrVietnam said: I redeemed Extra Bucks in California the other day and I didn't have to pay sales tax on the Extra Bucks...so it may be just a state by state thing.
when were they printed? this applies to extra bucks that were spit out of the registers after approx July 20th. If you got that extra buck on July 12th and just used it, that is why.
MrVietnam said: I redeemed Extra Bucks in California the other day and I didn't have to pay sales tax on the Extra Bucks...so it may be just a state by state thing.Do mfr coupons reduce tax in CA? They do in PA and my ECBs issued 8/1 and 8/3 still reduced tax.
NoMoneyInMyWallet said: MrVietnam said: I redeemed Extra Bucks in California the other day and I didn't have to pay sales tax on the Extra Bucks...so it may be just a state by state thing.Do mfr coupons reduce tax in CA? They do in PA and my ECBs issued 8/1 and 8/3 still reduced tax.
I'll have to keep an eye on this and report back. maybe it is a state by state issue after all.
MrVietnam said: I redeemed Extra Bucks in California the other day and I didn't have to pay sales tax on the Extra Bucks...so it may be just a state by state thing. No you are wrong. I am in SoCal. I have seen CVS MFR when used newer ecb. This MFR thing is nationwide. I don't know if ecb will eat tax or not like regular MQ does, I have seen someone said it does. But I have not seen it myself. It is more difficult to figure out my plan with this new ecb rule. My OOP has been high lately due to tax.
MrVietnam said: I redeemed Extra Bucks in California the other day and I didn't have to pay sales tax on the Extra Bucks...so it may be just a state by state thing.Did you buy a taxable item???
zmaster said: MrVietnam said: I redeemed Extra Bucks in California the other day and I didn't have to pay sales tax on the Extra Bucks...so it may be just a state by state thing. No you are wrong. I am in SoCal. I have seen CVS MFR when used newer ecb. This MFR thing is nationwide. I don't know if ecb will eat tax or not like regular MQ does, I have seen someone said it does. But I have not seen it myself. It is more difficult to figure out my plan with this new ecb rule. My OOP has been high lately due to tax.
I agree. I am in SoCal as well. When I used the 0.99 ECB to buy a 0.99 item, I expected the total would be nada instead I had to pay 0.09 for sales tax and the receipt showed I used a MFR coupon.
I just got back from CVS and purchased a total of $20.23 worth of goods ($16.94 of taxable items). I paid with $11.94 in Extra Bucks. All the Extra Bucks came out on the receipt as "CVS Coupon" (not manufacturer coupon). After the ECBs were subtracted out my subtotal came to $8.29 and I was charged 61 cents in sales tax (the rate here in Southern California is 8.75%). So as can plainly be seen that the treating of ECBs as manufacturer coupons and charging sales tax on them MUST be regional because if I was charged sales tax on my order I would have had to pay $1.48 on the taxable items in my order. I live in Orange County, California.
By the way, the week starting Sunday, 8/16, has a lot of FREE AFTER ECB items. I just bought most of them today at my local CVS. It was a day early but the CVS sales start the day before here for some reason at some of the CVS stores.
The forced ECBs seem to still act as store coupons (remove sales tax/come up as a plain CVS coupon). So that's an extra reason to get RCs. My socal sales tax is 9.75%, so it definitely hurts.
I think, regardless of the date, some ECBs are still coming up as regular CVS coupons. I have a couple receipts around and even on the same receipt "coupons" that I know were ECBs are listed differently. I can't identify which ECB was which for most of them, but I'm pretty the $1.89 one was from tampons and it just says CVS coupon. I know that one was not forced (the forced ones round up to the nearest dollar value). In these cases the CVS coupon ones did still take off tax and the CVS man. coupon ones did not. The $9.99 one from last week's Revlon deal worked as a CVS man. coupon.
edit - I don't remember what week had the $1.89 deal, but I know it was a week with FAECB school supply deals. In my area (which is not necessarily the same as other areas in socal) I started seeing the CVS Man. coupons appear on my receipt the week the school supply deals started and the school supply ECBs came up as CVS Man. coupons. It may be that not all stores have the update so some stores print ECBs that still come up as plain CVS coupons. It may be that some deals were planned out earlier so their ECBs are the old kind. That's assuming there is some sort of logic behind it.
MrVietnam said: I just got back from CVS and purchased a total of $20.23 worth of goods ($16.94 of taxable items). I paid with $11.94 in Extra Bucks. All the Extra Bucks came out on the receipt as "CVS Coupon" (not manufacturer coupon). After the ECBs were subtracted out my subtotal came to $8.29 and I was charged 61 cents in sales tax (the rate here in Southern California is 8.75%). So as can plainly be seen that the treating of ECBs as manufacturer coupons and charging sales tax on them MUST be regional because if I was charged sales tax on my order I would have had to pay $1.48 on the taxable items in my order. I live in Orange County, California. There is more things to consider. If your ECB was from an cvs brand item it will ring as CVS Coupon, if your CRT is for CVS brand it will ring as CVS coupon, if you are using those x/xx coupon they will also ring as CVS Coupon.
And if your ECB is was from non-cvs brand it will ring as CVS MFR, if your CRT is for non-cvs item it will ring as CVS MFR. This is just my observation, if you can explain better than me please do so.
zmaster said: [There is more things to consider. If your ECB was from an cvs brand item it will ring as CVS Coupon, if your CRT is for CVS brand it will ring as CVS coupon, if you are using those x/xx coupon they will also ring as CVS Coupon. That has not been my experience. The first time I ran into this was with the ECB or CVS/Calber brand (Caliber is obviously a CVS brand because stuff is on the same offer) and I was charged sales tax when using it.
I actually did not buy the free earbuds today because it wasn't worth the sales tax. I bought all of the free school supply stuff and 4 cases of Pepsi since I wanted to use a $5/25 coupon they had emailed me. That got me over $25 (including can deposits of $2.40).
billrubin said: zmaster said: [There is more things to consider. If your ECB was from an cvs brand item it will ring as CVS Coupon, if your CRT is for CVS brand it will ring as CVS coupon, if you are using those x/xx coupon they will also ring as CVS Coupon. That has not been my experience. The first time I ran into this was with the ECB or CVS/Calber brand (Caliber is obviously a CVS brand because stuff is on the same offer) and I was charged sales tax when using it.
I actually did not buy the free earbuds today because it wasn't worth the sales tax. I bought all of the free school supply stuff and 4 cases of Pepsi since I wanted to use a $5/25 coupon they had emailed me. That got me over $25 (including can deposits of $2.40).
As someone said earlier, the manual forced ECB's still show up as "CVS Coupon" and still remove the tax. I've also noticed recently that after using ECB's, the total showing on the display (where you swipe your credit card) is often different from the total that you actually pay. This started about a month ago, so it definitely seems like CVS has made some changes to their computer system recently. Let's hope that at least the forced ECB's will continue to reduce the tax. It makes getting rainchecks much more desirable than in the past. Bill, just look for a store that is out of the earbuds and then get a raincheck & use it next week.
roy7736 said: As someone said earlier, the manual forced ECB's still show up as "CVS Coupon" and still remove the tax.
My stores all take expired ECB's. Sounds like I should let them all expire before using them. Though never really paid any attention to how they ring up that way.
roy7736 said: Bill, just look for a store that is out of the earbuds and then get a raincheck & use it next week.Interesting idea, but it would still cause me to pay tax when I bought them (but the resulting ECB would be tax-free). However, I'll be in a tax-free state next week so maybe I can use the raincheck there and avoid the sales tax.
JamesTKirk said: roy7736 said: As someone said earlier, the manual forced ECB's still show up as "CVS Coupon" and still remove the tax. My stores all take expired ECB's. Sounds like I should let them all expire before using them. Though never really paid any attention to how they ring up that way.I could be wrong, but I thought he meant ECB's that were printed manually (either because it was a raincheck item or something was broken), not those that were entered manually for redemption, although I guess it could work that way as well.
billrubin said: JamesTKirk said: roy7736 said: As someone said earlier, the manual forced ECB's still show up as "CVS Coupon" and still remove the tax. My stores all take expired ECB's. Sounds like I should let them all expire before using them. Though never really paid any attention to how they ring up that way.I could be wrong, but I thought he meant ECB's that were printed manually (either because it was a raincheck item or something was broken), not those that were entered manually for redemption, although I guess it could work that way as well.
yes, I was referring to the forced ECB's that are printed manually when you use a raincheck or when the ECB's don't print out for some reason.
I went to a second CVS store here in Orange County, California, and sure enough, the ECBs were treated as CVS manufacturer coupons. So instead of this being a regional thing I want to correct myself and I think whenever the Extra Bucks are NOT treated as manufacturer coupons probably the store hasn't received or implemented the latest corporate update. I wonder why CVS has now changed their policy. Do you suppose they got sued by state governments? I always thought Extra Bucks were store coupons and therefore not taxable. I would have thought the change would have happened on a state-by-state basis as CVS pays the sales tax to the state governments, right? Something big must have happened to make it nationwide.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but with this new policy of treating CVS Extra Bucks as manufacturer coupons this in effect makes us pay DOUBLE sales tax on advertised free items. Case in point: If something is advertised for $9.99 but FREE after Extra Bucks you still pay the sales tax on the $9.99 of course, and then when you actually get the $9.99 Extra Buck coupon you are now paying tax on the pre-Extra Buck coupon price so in effect you are paying tax on the amount of the Extra Buck award. So when something now is advertised as free after Extra Bucks, you have to take the amount of sales tax and multiply it by two to see if that amount is worth it to pay to get the supposedly "free" item. So now CVS is inline with how Walgreens now treats their Register Rewards.
Now I will be more selective when I buy the "free" after Extra Buck items at CVS because there is still a money outlay (times 2). This makes the whole Extra Buck system much less attractive, just as the Walgreens' system is much less attractive now they got rid of their monthly Easy Saver rebates with that 10% bonus which covered the sales tax.
saffronreynolds
Member
posted: Aug. 17, 2009 @ 7:48p
It certainly does make the free deals not free.
Manufacturers are the ones who finance the ECBs, so I guess it makes some sense. But I've had CVS brand products generate the CVS Man. coupon ECBs, so that seems unfair. I am being much more selective now since the only possible free after ECB items are food.
I had to have a $4/20 forced in (it was used previously but the transaction was voided) and it then came up as a CVS Man. coupon. That's entirely wrong. Sales tax had already gone way too high - this change makes it even more aggravating.
MrVietnam said: Correct me if I'm wrong, but with this new policy of treating CVS Extra Bucks as manufacturer coupons this in effect makes us pay DOUBLE sales tax on advertised free items. Case in point: If something is advertised for $9.99 but FREE after Extra Bucks you still pay the sales tax on the $9.99 of course, and then when you actually get the $9.99 Extra Buck coupon you are now paying tax on the pre-Extra Buck coupon price so in effect you are paying tax on the amount of the Extra Buck award. So when something now is advertised as free after Extra Bucks, you have to take the amount of sales tax and multiply it by two to see if that amount is worth it to pay to get the supposedly "free" item. Your scenario is not unique to ECBs. It's no different than buying a FAR item. You pay tax on the item, then pay tax when you buy another item with the rebate proceeds.
P.S. Since I have so much free "crap" that I don't need, I don't even bother with the free stuff unless I need it, make money after coupons, or need filler to use a coupon. That said, I still "buy" too much crap.
NoMoneyInMyWallet said: Your scenario is not unique to ECBs. It's no different than buying a FAR item. You pay tax on the item, then pay tax when you buy another item with the rebate proceeds.
P.S. Since I have so much free "crap" that I don't need, I don't even bother with the free stuff unless I need it, make money after coupons, or need filler to use a coupon. That said, I still "buy" too much crap. The problem is you have expiring ECB's and the old way to use them was to just roll them into another free item. But now that item isn't always free anymore because of sales tax. So it costs you the sales tax to roll it into another ECB.
billrubin said: The problem is you have expiring ECB's and the old way to use them was to just roll them into another free item. But now that item isn't always free anymore because of sales tax. So it costs you the sales tax to roll it into another ECB.I used to do that, but lately I've tried to find clearance items that I can use or buy other items that are on sale at a reasonable price. Anyway, I don't think the change has impacted me, since mfr cpns used on taxable items reduce tax in my state.
It was earlier said: "x/xx coupon they will also ring as CVS Coupon," but this is not always the case. Just two days ago, my x/xx coupon listed on my receipt as "CVS manufacturer coupon." So I guess things vary for some reason. I guess the stores who have not received or implemented the updates yet those are the ones to shop at for now.
Also, it is really easy to get $4 off $20 purchase coupons by asking the pharmacist about their new auto refill program. When you have this coupon it usually more than easily offsets any tax burden that is generated. Also, if you use manufacturer coupons on top of getting the "free after Extra Bucks" items you can effectively use those savings to offset sales taxes.
I thought sales taxes were a state thing. It makes me wonder why CVS implemented this new policy nationwide and not just in certain states that complained.
Even with the new taxes, these free after Extra Buck offers are still good given that you need the item, but they are just not truly free anymore. At least for me, no more getting boxes and boxes of junk I will never use.
MrVietnam said: I thought sales taxes were a state thing. It makes me wonder why CVS implemented this new policy nationwide and not just in certain states that complained.They are. And the states that deduct sales tax for manufacturers coupons will work the way that the coupons used to work when they rang up as CVS Coupons.
I wonder if it was some internal accounting thing, that they were mistakenly showing the manufacturer-funded ECB as CVS coupons, and making it look like they were store discounts.
However, the $n/nn coupons should definitely ring up as store coupons given that they are store discounts. I used a $5/25 this past weekend and it rang up that way.
Skipping 1 Messages...
saffronreynolds
Member
posted: Aug. 18, 2009 @ 12:42p
MrVietnam said: It was earlier said: "x/xx coupon they will also ring as CVS Coupon," but this is not always the case. Just two days ago, my x/xx coupon listed on my receipt as "CVS manufacturer coupon." So I guess things vary for some reason. I guess the stores who have not received or implemented the updates yet those are the ones to shop at for now.
In my case I am pretty sure it came up that way because it was forced in. It was a readyfill coupon that was previously used and voided. I know it beeped, so I assume it said it was used already but the cashier forced it in. If any coupons like that are just randomly coming up as CVS Man coupons then that's completely wrong.
It's frustrating that if I have $20 of all taxable items even with the $4 off $20 I will be paying at least $1.56 in sales tax. Which isn't so horrible if I'm buying things that I need, but now I can't justify getting as much stuff to give away.
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