Tennesseans dispute the need for a food tax cut (Page 1 of 3)

Amy Rimmer works eight days a week. By Sunday evening, Rimmer will have juggled a full-time class schedule at the University of Tennessee’s graduate program of social work on its Nashville campus with 30 hours at the National Association for Social Workers internship, 20 hours at the clothing store Charlotte Russe and her entire weekend volunteering with Meals on Wheels for homebound citizens.

Rimmer is what many would refer to as the quintessential over-achiever. At the age of 27, she’s career-oriented — passionate about devoting her life to the needy and helping them rise from adversity. Where Rimmer deviates from that cookie-cutter image is that she happens to be almost as needy as some of the clients with whom she works.

“When I go to the grocery store completely depends on when I have the money to go to the grocery store,” she says. “My rent, electricity and car come before going to get groceries. I know that sounds crazy, but what can I do? I have to get to work, I have to get to school, so I have to have some place where I can sleep and take a shower.”

Coupon-clipping is like a religion to Rimmer, and she never leaves home without her Kroger discount card. Still, without squandering a single penny, she finds her supermarket buggy full of just the bare essentials: a generic loaf of bread, eggs, a few cans of vegetables and maybe, if it’s within her budget, some frozen chicken.

As a person who faces the challenge of filling her pantry on a regular basis, she has strong opinions on the current debate whether Tennessee should reduce or even eliminate sales taxes on unprepared food items. Today, Tennessee’s six percent rate is the second highest sales tax on food in the country, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, just below Mississippi’s seven percent rate.

Rimmer is in favor of totally exempting food from taxable goods, but she’ll settle on a tax swap compromise — another option being discussed — to alleviate some of the cost on Tennesseans’ grocery receipts. Gov. Phil Bredesen initially expressed opposition to all food tax bills across the board, suggesting that the revenue collected from food taxes is vital for the funding of education programs, but last week leaned toward a compromise to achieve his proposed cigarette tax increase.

 “I just don’t think it’s morally right to tax [people] on something they need to survive,” Rimmer says. “A family of four is a family of four. Regardless of how much money [each] family makes, they still have to buy the same amount of food to feed themselves.”

Passing the bill or passing the buck?

In Nashville where Rimmer resides, lawmakers are busily refining and researching proposed bills that might provide the solution to the grocery sales tax issue. A “phase-out,” basic food staples exemption, tobacco tax swap and “adult materials” tax swap are some of the current platforms gathering sponsors.

One bill making the rounds is a proposal to gradually reduce the food tax burden on Tennesseans by incrementally decreasing the current six percent tax each year, adjusting to accommodate inflation, until the tax is completely eliminated. According to state records, most of its sponsors are House and Senate Republicans.

Bredesen and others have suggested that this tax cut would be fiscally irresponsible, particularly because the food tax earnings partially fund education programs. Although the bill might seem humanitarian, some skeptics believe its supporters want to amend the current tax act simply for the sake of cutting taxes.

“Governor Bredesen is not philosophically opposed to reducing the state sales tax on food,” says Lydia Lenker, press secretary to the governor, “but he believes there are far too many unmet needs in education to consider this now. He believes there are better strategies to provide targeted relief to lower income earning families.”

Other proposals have included tax exemptions on specific nutritional staples like flour, milk, eggs, sugar and baby formula, and sin tax swaps which intend to increase one type of good — like porn or tobacco — in order to cut the food tax in half.