On April 25, throughout her finances luncheon, Mayor Indya Kincannon proudly declared that Knoxville’s funds have by no means been higher. She even proposed prepaying $25 million on the conference middle debt.
Lower than a month later, earlier than this yr’s fiscal finances was accepted, she held a press convention insisting we’re in such dire straits that we have to rush by means of a gross sales tax enhance.
One thing doesn’t add up. This contradiction is on the coronary heart of why Knoxville In opposition to Elevating Taxes opposes the gross sales tax enhance on the poll this fall. The problem isn’t a scarcity of funds. It’s a scarcity of fiscal self-discipline.
Misplaced priorities
Lately, metropolis management has loved bloated budgets because of huge infusions of federal COVID funding. That funding is gone.
This administration noticed match to spend $11 million on a swimming platform in a metropolis park. They spent $1.5 million on a controversial downtown artwork challenge.
On the identical time, we face vital vacancies in our police and hearth departments. The Homosexual Avenue Bridge has been closed for over a yr. Kids have been hit strolling to highschool. Public security and infrastructure ought to come earlier than artwork tasks, bicycle lanes and swimming platforms.
But this proposed tax enhance isn’t tied to fixing these urgent wants. It merely pours more cash into the overall fund, the place it may be spent on something.
We additionally hear fixed discuss “inexpensive housing,” but the kind of government-supported housing the town pursues is usually the most costly to construct. Between subsidies, tax credit and layers of paperwork, the true per-unit prices exceed what personal builders can ship luxurious models for.
R. Bentley Marlow
This administration has paid out-of-state consultants who all advisable zoning reform, much less pink tape and streamlined development processes ‒ no more bloated taxpayer funded development tasks.
A regressive tax with even much less profit
Supporters of this proposal downplay the rise, calling it “only a half-cent.” Knoxville’s present native gross sales tax is 2.25 cents. Elevating it to 2.75 is greater than a 20% hike. And in contrast to property taxes, gross sales taxes are regressive: they fall hardest on working households, retirees and people residing paycheck-to-paycheck.
And right here’s the piece voters not often hear: Knoxville is not going to truly hold all the cash. If Knox County adjusts its gross sales tax fee to match the town, one half of the projected $47 million will go to Knox County Colleges.
Which means the gross sales tax burden on the register will probably be everlasting and fast, however the metropolis’s precise profit will probably be short-term and far smaller than marketed. Kincannon is promising neighborhoods sidewalks, parks, greenways and highway paving ‒ realizing full properly there received’t be sufficient funds to cowl all of the tasks she’s touting now.
We will’t tax our strategy to accountability
Just some years in the past, Knoxville enacted a major property tax enhance, then elevated the lodge tax. This summer time, parking charges and fines elevated dramatically. Cities don’t grow to be stronger by consistently looting the taxpayers’ wallets. Knoxville deserves leaders who put public security and actual affordability forward of self-importance tasks.
We should always have an trustworthy dialog about taxes, not a rushed push for a regressive enhance disguised as “only a half-cent.”
Knoxville’s fiscal well being is sound by the mayor’s personal admission. If priorities are misaligned, then the answer is to vary spending priorities ‒ to not increase taxes on faculty provides and every day wants.
This fall, we ask voters to ship a transparent message: sufficient is sufficient. Vote in opposition to the gross sales tax enhance.
R. Bentley Marlow is an inexpensive housing and zoning reform advocate, and is treasurer of Knoxville Against Raising Taxes.
This text initially appeared on Knoxville Information Sentinel: Why Knoxville doesn’t need a sales tax hike | Opinion
