Sun Sentinel: Class-action status OK'd in claim BJ's collects excessive sales tax

By May 30, 2017

By: Ron Hurtibise
Sun Sentinel
May 30, 2017
A lawsuit alleging that B.J.’s Wholesale Club is charging excessive sales tax can proceed as a class action, meaning it could benefit all members paying the tax, a judge has ruled.
The suit was filed in 2015 by a Miami-Dade County woman, Laura Bugliaro, who said she noticed she was being charged state sales tax on the full retail price of discounted items at the club’s Cutler Bay store after buying two Samsung televisions in November 2014.
The suit says Bugliaro paid $769.99 and $329.99 but was charged sales tax on the full retail prices of $1,399.99 and $529.99.
The suit is seeking a two-pronged remedy: a permanent injunction to stop the practice and a separate ruling ordering the wholesale club to return sales taxes it contends were improperly collected since 2011.
Thursday’s ruling by Judge John W. Thornton of the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami establishes a class of future victims who would be protected by a permanent injunction stopping the practice, two of the plaintiffs attorneys, Steve Silverman of Miami-based law firm Kluger, Kaplan, Silverman, Katzen & Levine and Victor Diaz of V.M. Diaz & Partners, based in Miami Beach, said in an interview Tuesday.
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