Kim Kardashian’s fashion brand must pay $200,000 to settle allegations that it overcharged customers over a five-year period.
The Hollywood-based loungewear and shapewear brand Skims Body improperly charged New Jersey customers sales tax from 2019 through 2024 even though most clothes are exempt in the state, New Jersey Atty. Gen. Matthew Platkin and the state’s Division of Consumer Affairs announced in a statement Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the company said in an email that a “technical error” in its sales tax collection system was to blame. The problem has since been fixed, according to the spokesperson.
The attorney general’s office said that Skims had engaged in “unconscionable business practices.”
“We’re holding Skims accountable because their conduct harmed New Jersey consumers by requiring them to pay more than what they owed. We won’t tolerate conduct that unlawfully takes money out of the pockets of hard-working New Jerseyans,” Platkin said in the statement.
Skims said in the statement that the error was inadvertent.
Skims has reached out to affected customers to provide full refunds of any “over-collected amounts,” according to its statement.
New Jersey customers have complained about the problem online and to the company about the issue as early as 2021, according to posts on Reddit about Skims.
The state’s consumer affairs division began investigating Skims’ practices after someone submitted a complaint in early 2024, according to the consent order resolving the fraud allegations filed on Jan. 16.
Under the agreement, Skims will be required to, for the next four years, “use best efforts” to refund customers who were overcharged sales taxes on their products in a “reasonably timely manner.”
“We remain deeply committed to the highest standards of compliance and have implemented enhanced safeguards to prevent any recurrence of similar issues,” the statement said.
Skims, launched by Kardashian and Chief Executive Jens Grede in 2019, began as an online store but has since expanded to brick-and-mortar stores nationwide. Its Los Angeles flagship store opened in April 2025 in West Hollywood.
The privately held company capitalizing on the athleisure trend was valued at $5 billion in November.
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