Queens Customers Get To Pay Nassau’s Sales Tax

(cont. from leadstory page 1)
A number of people living in northeastern Queens whose zip codes are either 11001, 11004, 11005 or 11040 are required to pay the Nassau sales tax of 8.50 percent instead of New York City’s 8.25 percent on certain purchases made by catalog or the Internet, according to a Council member.
The glitch in the system affects only residents of Queens with those zip codes who make a purchase from a company that has offices in New York State and where the goods purchased would be sent to them by postal mail.
Residents of Queens are being charged the Nassau tax rate, because the State division of taxation classifies the above zip codes, which encompass parts of Floral Park, Glen Oaks and New Hyde Park, as being entirely in Nassau County, when actually they are partly in Queens.
"We do not yet know the extent of the problem," said the councilman , who has conducted only a preliminary investigation after he discovered the problem a month ago. He doesn’t currently know how many people have been affected.
But he does assert that the problem is greater than Queens residents paying .25 percent more than they should be to taxes.
Because New York City has eliminated the sales tax on clothing, some customers charged the Nassau tax shouldn’t have had to pay any taxes at all.
And compounding the problem further is that New York City isn’t benefiting from the erroneously applied sales tax because that money is going to Nassau County.
Daniel Goldberg of Floral Park, Queens, is one who was charged the Nassau tax rate for a mail order he placed to Nordstrom. Proving it, Goldberg wields a packing slip charging him the 8.50 percent sales tax.
"When I complained, I was told that because the zip code is in Nassau, the computer programs have been set up to reflect Nassau rates and cannot distinguish between the two counties," said Goldberg.
Besides Nordstrom, the clothing and home furnishings company Orvis has also charged at least one Queens resident the Nassau tax rate.
The New York State Dept. of Taxation has been requested to investigate and take appropriate actions to rectify the problem.