Toscanini's has raised more than $10,000 in donations to help pay its delinquent taxes since the state shut the ice cream shop in Central Square on Thursday.
The Massachusetts Department of Revenue seized control of the Cambridge-based purveyor of frozen creations after it failed to pay more than $167,000 in taxes dating back to 2000.
On Friday, Toscanini's ice cream maker, Sam Mehr, created a website, savetosci.com, where visitors could donate using PayPal and leave comments. By last night, more than 130 individuals had contributed to help the owners make a down payment on the back taxes so the state will allow the business to reopen.
"We're very surprised and immensely grateful and happy with the support we've been getting," Toscanini's co-owner Mimi Rancatore said yesterday.
Revenue Department spokesman Bob Bliss said last week that the agency has worked for years to resolve the matter, but has made no progress.
The department plans to auction Toscanini's assets if an agreement on a payment plan cannot be reached shortly. About $140,000 is owed in meal taxes, and the balance is in employee withholding taxes, Bliss said.
Mimi Rancatore said she plans to file an abatement today - Toscanini's disagrees with the amount owed - and hopes to reopen the business and start a payment plan this week. She said the delinquent taxes were the result of "not paying attention to the nuts and bolts" during the expansion to Harvard Square and Somerville.
Comments left on the site were split between sympathy and condemnation.
Toscanini's has set a fund-raising goal of $25,000.
"How is it ethical for a for-profit business to ask its customers, whose taxes it apparently pocketed, to pay AGAIN?" one reader wrote on the site. "I like to support local and family businesses, but I'm having trouble stomaching this."
Jenn Abelson can be reached at abelson@globe.com.
