Is Target About To Charge You A New Fee On Purchases In Texas?

As if we don't deal with enough fees in Amarillo, TX., there now may be another fee you will have to pay, and it's disguised as something that makes you THINK it's all about improving the city or something along those lines.

Have you ever heard of the PIF? It stands for Public Improvement Fee, and it's a fee that's been attached to several different states for awhile now. Texas hasn't been one of them, at least so far. It could be coming however.

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We know about the hotel tax and how that helps Amarillo. Many things have been improved or built because of that particular tax. It's essentially a fee that is charged when renting a hotel room in Amarillo, and that money funnels back into the city. It gets used for various projects.

The Public Improvement Fee sounds like something that would funnel right back into the city as well right?

That would be false.

In Colorado, Target recently started charging a 1.4% fee on purchases and it has nothing to do with improving the city/state, or even the Target store itself. It's actually a selfish fee they're attaching to those purchases.

In recent years, retail stores have been seeing and dealing with more theft. Now stores called it "shrink" because it means their inventory is shrinking, but they aren't seeing a return on the product leaving the shelves.

This PIF is designed to help recoup the money lost by shrink, that way the store itself isn't losing money. In other words, you are paying for criminal acts when you get charged this fee.

We only have one Target store in here Amarillo, but if you shop at it, check your receipt next time. You could be paying for the store not doing a better job of watching for those thefts occurring.

People standing at Walmart checking your receipt doesn't seem so bad now does it?