May 27 (Reuters) - Warehouse club operator Costco Wholesale Corp (COST.O) posted a higher quarterly profit on Thursday 27 May, helped by increased sales of items ranging from fresh food to clothes and housewares.

The company, which charges members an annual fee to trawl its aisles of bulk offerings of toilet paper and food and bigger ticket items like HD televisions, said net income was $306 million, or 68 cents a share, in its fiscal third quarter ended May 2. That compares with $210 million, or 48 cents a share, a year earlier.

Sales rose 12 percent to $17.39 billion.

Analysts on average were expecting earnings of 66 cents a share, excluding items, on revenue of $17.63 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Third-quarter comparable store sales rose 4 percent, excluding the impact of fuel prices and foreign exchange.

The results were boosted by a partial reversal of $14 million of a charge related to a Canadian tax liability, while the year-ago results were negatively impacted by a pretax charge of $34 million, Costco said. (Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Greg Mahlich)