What Are These Strange “FEEs” Popping Up On Casper Recepts?

What's with these odd fees popping up on receipts from Casper, Wyoming shops?

I’m so sorry to see this. I will get what I’m needing from Marshall’s…they don’t charge extras. Yes, I know they are the same company, but I’m not paying for them to build a building. It’s their job.

About the same time this was posted on Facebook, a story appeared on the Oil City News site about another retailer doing the same thing.

Shoppers at the newly opened Sierra and HomeGoods stores in Blackmore Marketplace are facing an unexpected 2.5% “improvement fee” (Oil City News).

 

It is typical that local costs, including permitting fees, are often passed on to the customer. What has not been so common, until recently, is for that "fee" or "tax" to be listed on the receipt.

This happens when the retailer wants the consumer to know that the extra charges are not coming from them but from the local government, through them. Retailers could eat the cost, and that is what most politicians want to happen. But the business rarely does. It's almost always passed on to the consumer.

The comments on this Facebook post are interesting as folks try to figure out who is to blame for the extra charge.

In some cases, extra fees by the local government go toward the local city or county costs of utilities and road improvements to accommodate the store. Sometimes it's just local government trying to find new ways to bring in money. It depends on where you live.

The "BLACKMORE FEE" might be from the shopping plaza itself, charging the store and the store passing that charge on to the consumer.