SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - One thought stuck in Catherine Travis mind after seeing the new sign inside Corner Mart: "this is wrong."

The sign, posted behind the cashier's desk and to the side, is black type on white paper, taped to the shelf where the cigarettes are kept.

Tammy Travis made the trek to Corner Mart with another co-worker after hearing about the store's "special tax." Her subtotal was $9.37. She paid 61 cents in "special taxes" bringing her total to $9.98. This works out to be neither the standard five per cent GST tax or the seven per cent tax advertised by the sign in the store. It only adds up to 6.5 per cent. - Lauren McKeon/NNSL photo

It reads "GST shown in sales slip" and breaks down the added tax by showing one line pointing to "5 per cent GST" and another to a "2 per cent fuel surcharge" for a total of seven per cent in taxes.

Travis was at the Corner Mart last Wednesday evening to buy her boyfriend dinner. She said she was charged the seven per cent "special tax."

"To me it's like trying to rip off the public. I didn't feel comfortable about it at all," she said.

Travis said the clerk explained the extra two per cent was to cover rising fuel costs for shipping goods and food ingredients north.

She said she understands where Corner Mart is coming from - doing business in the North means sometimes stores must raise their prices to say competitive. What irks her is Corner Mart's approach.

If the store had decided to increase its prices to cover rising costs, Travis said she would have continued shopping there without a second thought, but the extra tax is another story.

"If you want to raise your prices that's fine. The cost of doing business in the North is knowing that things are more expensive up here and knowing eventually we're going to have to compensate somewhere," she said.

"But don't try to sneak in taxes when a fuel surcharge, for starters, isn't (even) a tax," she added.

Corner Mart staff directed several requests for comment on the reasons behind the fuel surcharge to the manager, who did not contact Yellowknifer before press time.

Extra charges like the one Corner Mart is currently charging are not covered under the Consumer Protection Act, said Eleanor Young, director of community operations with the territorial government's Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) department.

"If their prices have gone up due to fuel costs, they can pass that charge on to their customers," she said.

But there are still avenues for customers who take issue with Corner Mart's policy.

Young recommended any customer with a concern write a complaint addressed to Michael Gagnon, MACA's consumer affairs policy officer.

"We would then investigate it on (the customer's) behalf and check things out with the retailer and provide them with direction of (what) they're doing wrong or whether they have no legislative basis to do what they're doing," Young said.

It may simply be an issue where Corner Mart needs to change their system so the two charges, GST and fuel, show up separately, or to post a sign - which Corner Mart has done, although some customers say it needs to be more prominent - explaining the extra charges, said Young.

Either way, Young said the department would "gladly investigate it further."

Carl Bird, director of corporate services with the City of Yellowknife, said the city has no authority over a business in cases like this.

"They can do whatever they want. The city has no jurisdiction over how a company covers its costs," he said. "We have no jurisdiction over what a business wants to collect."

Or how it wants to collect.

Travis' co-worker, Tammy Travis, went to Corner Mart Thursday with another co-worker after hearing Catherine's story. She said she was also charged the extra tax, adding she felt the sign notifying people of the two per cent charge was not in plain enough sight.

Both women said two per cent doesn't seem like much but added there are some people - like the five-year-old kid who saves up change to buy candy - to whom pennies can make all the difference.