A new bill proposal would stop Tennesseans from paying sales taxes on fruits and vegetables.
State Representative Mike Sparks (R-Smyrna) introduced House Bill (HB) 2086 last week, which would prevent people from paying the state’s 4 percent sales tax on these items.
Tennessee remains one of 10 states that taxes grocery purchases.
Sparks is not the only state Republican attempting to end sales taxes on grocery purchases.
State Representative Elaine Davis (R-Knoxville) introduced HB 0021, which would go further than Sparks’ bill by eliminating sales taxes on all food and food ingredients.
HB 0021 would also remove the 0.5 percent sales tax that funds K-12 education in the state.
This bill proposal would ensure counties and municipalities continue to receive adequate funding for what they previously received from grocery taxes.
For grocery stores and retailers that sell alcohol, they are still required to have 20 percent of their sales come from food; however, that doesn’t have to come from taxable food sales.
Davis introduced this bill last year, but it never made it through the Legislature; it is still active.
If HB 0021 had become law during last year’s session, it would have cost Tennessee to lose $808 million in revenue in fiscal year 2025-2026 and “subsequent years,” according to a fiscal note.
Besides Republicans, Democrats have also introduced bills that seek to eliminate the state’s grocery sales tax.
In State Representative John Ray Clemmons’ (D-Nashville) HB 1767, it would only allow certain Tennesseans to get a grocery sales tax exemption.
This bill proposal would apply only to people who make less than 300 percent of the federal threshold for the “free or reduced price lunch” standard, which is around $96,000. HB 1767 would also require a person to have one child or dependent claimed on a federal tax return to qualify for the tax break.
State Representative Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville), who lost to Representative Matt Van Epps in the Tennessee 7th Congressional District race, refiled her bill, HB 0002, seeking to eliminate the state’s grocery sales tax.
The fiscal note for this bill said it would have caused Tennessee to lose $824 million in fiscal year 2025-2026 and “subsequent years.”
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at zschmidt1717@gmail.com.
