Over the past year, hundreds of you have asked Whistleblower for help. While we can't investigate each tip, we want to share more of what you tell us. In 2009, we started publishing a few tips each week to stimulate online discussion and create ways for our readers to help each other. Unlike our news stories, we have not verified this information. If you have a tip, send it to whistleblower@startribune.com.

The overcharge tax was only 29 cents, but paying sales tax on what she thought was food irked one Minneapolis woman enough that she's warning other shoppers to check their receipts.

She told Whistleblower that she bought two bottles of cranberry juice cocktail in Brooklyn Center. Not until she left the big-box discounter did she realize she had been charged sales tax.

Lest you think sales taxes on beverages are a simple matter, the Minnesota Department of Revenue has a Web page devoted to the matter. Soft drinks are taxed. Drinks with less than 15 percent juice are taxed. Those with more juice aren't. "Sparkling apple cider" is taxed, but "cranberry juice cocktail" isn't.

The store in question offered to refund the 29 cents, she said.

How often do you find errors in your receipts?

UPDATE: A Whistleblower reader asked the very pertinent question: "What recourse does a consumer have when they KNOW they are being wrongly charged sales tax?"

I put the question to Kit Borgman of the Minnesota Department of Revenue. Here was Borgman's response:


UPDATE 2: It turns out the shopper was properly charged sales tax after all. Whistleblower reported about the way the state used to tax beverages until 2002. The Department of Revenue doesn't help the confusion by keeping its outdated, revoked guidance on its web site. Kit Borgman of the revenue department said those sites would be updated. Here's what the law currently allows: