Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon is set to present her proposal that would raise the city’s sales tax by a half-cent to fund “affordable housing,” sidewalks, parks, and other projects to the city council this week.
The mayor announced last week she would be asking the city council to put a half-cent Local Option Sales Tax increase on the November ballot for voters to approve or reject.
Groceries, defined by the state as “food and ingredients for home consumption,” would be exempt from the new tax, the mayor’s office said.
A half-cent increase to the city’s local sales tax, which currently stands at 2.25 percent, would raise the rate to 2.75 percent.
Coupled with the state’s base sales tax rate of 7 percent, Knoxville’s total sales tax rate under the mayor’s proposal would equal 9.75 percent.
The mayor said her proposal to raise the local sales tax is projected to generate as much as $47 million per year and would be used to fund $10 million in “affordable housing,” $5 million in “facilities and maintenance,” $12 million in “greenways and road paving,” $10 million in “parks,” and $10 million in “sidewalks and traffic calming.”
Kincannon and her staff are scheduled to present the proposal to the city council workshop at its 4:00 p.m. meeting on Thursday.
The mayor argued that Knoxville needs to generate more local revenue to meet the growing needs of its infrastructure and community, noting that both the city’s population and tourism are “skyrocketing.”
“It is no secret that more people are moving here, the number of visitors here is skyrocketing, and our infrastructure is being pushed to its limits. This budget cycle alone, we had more than $70 million in infrastructure requests that can’t be funded. With so much uncertainty, it is more important than ever that we take action to generate more local dollars for local projects,” Kincannon said.
The city council is expected to vote on whether or not to present the mayor’s proposal to voters on the ballot later this year in June.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Mayor Indya Kincannon” by Mayor Indya Kincannon. Background Photo “Knoxville Skyline” by Bohao Zhao. CC BY 3.0.
Why should government operations be i the housing market at all? I believe that is called socialism.
But the new baseball stadium, art sculpture and grant funding was suppose to pay for everything?????? Socialist Kincannon will spread that new 47 million around to pay for the votes it’s going to take to pass. Standby for the PR two step. Glen Jacobs and Larsen Jay have already greased the skids for the same increase in Knox County. It’s only a half cent……. Self governance is really difficult when this is the only choic.