Tennessee lawmaker proposes abolishing grocery tax, suggests corporations foot the bill instead

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Now that the Tennessee tax holiday expired last week, one Tennessee lawmakers is proposing a law that would abolish the grocery tax in the state year round.

This past session, lawmakers passed a three-month tax holiday on groceries from the beginning of August to the end of October.

Tennessee House Representative Aftyn Behn (D-District 51) said companies should pay for the tax change.

“My bill is different in that it proposes to close offshore tax loopholes from mega corporations in the state of Tennessee to pay for eliminating the tax," Behn said.

According to the Economic Policy Institute reveals in Tennessee, more than 60% of corporations do not pay corporate income taxes.

Tennessee is only 1 of 13 states that has the grocery tax.

READ: As of Wednesday you will be paying more for groceries.

Behn said she does not think “nurses and firefighters should be paying a higher state tax rate than a billion dollar corporations.”

“I think, because we don't have a state income tax, I think there is the false understanding that we are a low tax state, which we are not," Behn said. "And our regressive sales tax, as I said, disproportionately impacts a lot of low income folks, and it's more expensive to live. Also, the bottom 20% of Tennesseans pay more taxes than the top 1%.“

According to the Tax Foundation, the grocery tax rate is 4% but families are still subject to local grocery taxes, which can reach as high as 2.75%.

Behn said the grocery sales tax holiday eased the burden for families trying to put food on the table.

She thinks especially during the holidays, not having the grocery sales tax would be helpful.

Representative Behn said she believes the bill will receive bipartisan support in the next session of the Tennessee General Assembly.