Funeral home director says refund not cut and dry 10/18/02 Steve Moyer Email this story to a friend David Ferry, Ferry Funeral Home, wants to set the record straight on a recent ruling on sales taxes charged for caskets, burial vaults and grave liners. “I think that people might get the wrong idea from the articles. There are costs associated with getting the money back,” Ferry said. “It’s our intention to refund everything we receive back minus the costs of collecting it.” In an Associated Press report, Attorney General Jay Nixon was quoted as saying “I don’t think Missouri tax law should be designed to give people who overcharge taxes a windfall.” Ferry felt this might give people the impression that funeral homes never intended to return the money to consumers. “Our business is built on trust and we would never do anything to harm the reputation of our business, if we did that we might as well close the doors,” Ferry said. People expecting a refund should be prepared to wait, the ruling has been appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court. “This case isn’t over yet and we aren’t sure how we will handle getting the money back, or when we will, but we will return any refund to the family or if we can’t locate a particular person to receive the refund we’ll donate the money to charity,” Ferry said. Ferry said he wasn’t sure whether he should respond to the articles or let it pass. “I didn’t know whether this would just stir something up or not but I really felt there was some information out there that might confuse people and I didn’t want to ignore it,” Ferry said. There are other complicating factors other than just the cost of getting the refund back. “Once they say it isn’t a sales tax on the consumer then they’ll say it’s a use tax on the funeral home,” he said. “We’ll have to re-file those forms for the last three years so there will still be some kind of tax paid, use tax is a lesser tax but it is still a factor,” Ferry said. For families, the sales tax can add perhaps $225 to the funeral bill, assuming a 7 percent tax on a $2400 casket and $800 burial container. The state tax rate is 4.225 percent; local taxes are applied on top of the state rate and vary by municipality. Missouri funeral homes are still charging sales tax on caskets and burial containers while the appeal is pending, because they are liable for the taxes if they lose the case. The total amount Ferry Funeral Home might see is around $50,000 for the three year period, but that isn’t how much will be available to consumers since there will be the cost of filing for the refund, paying additional use taxes and the cost of having someone doing the bookwork. “The law firm that filed the suit on behalf of Bucholz Mortuaries sent a letter and offered its services to other funeral homes for 33 percent of the returned funds,” Ferry said. “It’s going to be costly to us, it’s not a big windfall. That’s what I want to get across.”