VIRGINIA BEACH --Many tourists pinched pennies this year to be able to enjoy the sun and surf at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.
13News found that some of their vacation money disappeared when stores charged sales tax on tax-exempt items like sunscreen and first aid products.
Last year, state officials learned from our investigations that a host of major retailers were overcharging sales tax.
This year, it's still going on.
Up and down Atlantic Avenue, store after store charged five-percent sales tax on tax-exempt non-prescription drug items -- sunscreens with SPF, medicated mouthwash and first aid products.
Ray Abbott of Canada says he thought he might have been overcharged when he bought sunscreen at Mango Bay at 31st Street.
"So I thought tax on this? Hum. I was a little surprised, but I didn't argue it," he said.
13News also was charged sales tax on sunscreen at Mango Bay. When we told the manager the product was tax exempt, it was news to her. She says she'd worked there three years and didn't know that sun screen with SPF was a tax-free item.
Down Atlantic Avenue, the same owner runs Sunsations, where 13News again paid tax on sunscreen with SPF. We were told it was all an innocent mistake.
Tourists like Sam Osei from Maryland have no clue they're wrongly being charged tax.
Down at the BP station on 31st Street, 13news was overcharged tax. The explanation: Virginia has a sundries tax.
That was news to the Virginia Dept. of Taxation.
At the Holiday Inn at 21st Street, sunscreen with SPF was hit with a food and beverage tax. That money goes to the city.
Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms says this isn't the type of relationship the city wants to build with tourists.
"It's wrong and we need to fix it. I believe I'm going to tell the city manager, the commissioner of the revenue and the city treasurer to see if we can educate as well as test," he stated.
Virginia has 200 poeple paid to educate and test businesses, but officials said there are just too many products and too many stores to make sure everyone's getting it right.
A check Thursday at several locations in this report found changes had been made and no tax was being charged on exempt items we bought.
