Nashville sales tax hike: viable option, or a senior moment?

Excerpt From The Tennessee Journal
Sept 12, 2005

State’s counterarguments.

The state attorney general -- and -- others disagree. A 1999 attorney general’s opinion said that under the state constitution, only the state can provide tax relief to the elderly, and only through the reimbursements that the constitution specifically allows. Others say that the attorney general’s opinions, at the very least, create reasonable doubt about Metro’s proposal and that the net effect of the tax relief is to reduce the tax-assessment ratio for some homeowners. Tennessee Tax Revolt, a grass-roots group, told The Tennessean last month it is considering a challenge to the Metro tax-relief proposal.

State law already provides some property tax relief for the low-income elderly, once again in the form of funds appropriated by the General Assembly.

More tax relief for seniors could come in a few years under a constitutional amendment proposed by Sen. Mark Norris (R-Collierville). Norris’s proposal would allow local governments to freeze property taxes for low-income senior citizens. Local governments wouldn’t have to offer tax relief, but the amendment would explicitly allow them to do so. The legislature would set rules for eligibility based on income and wealth.

Under the proposal, once a qualifying homeowner turned 65, his or her property tax bill would stay the same from then on, regardless of rate hikes or increases in property value, unless the homeowner actually improved the property. Norris’s resolution passed in both the state House and Senate in the previous General Assembly. If this General Assembly approves it by a two-thirds vote, it will be put to a referendum on the November 2006 ballot.