NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee has not collected a property tax at the state level since 1949, and Amendment 2 on Tuesday’s ballot asks voters to make sure it never can without their say.
The proposal adds language to Article II, Section 28 of the state Constitution stating that the General Assembly may not levy, authorize or permit a state tax on real, personal or mixed property. Under current law a future legislature could create such a tax with an ordinary bill. If the amendment passes, bringing one back would take a new constitutional amendment, a process that runs through two separate General Assemblies, needs a supermajority in the later one and ends with voters.
County and city property taxes, the ones Tennessee homeowners actually pay, are not touched. Local governments keep full power to levy them for schools, roads and first responders.
Backers argue that even the possibility of a state levy can scare off employers deciding where to expand, and that the ban protects homeowners, farmers and people on fixed incomes from paying both a state and a local bill on the same land. They compare it to the 2014 amendment that shut the door on a state income tax on wages and payroll.
Opponents counter that the measure is unnecessary because no one is proposing a state property tax, and that it would lock in a rule that future lawmakers could not adjust even in a war, an economic collapse or another emergency.
The measure first passed the 113th General Assembly as House Joint Resolution 81 and the 114th as Senate Joint Resolution 1. Like the other two amendments on the ballot, it passes only if yes beats no and the yes total is more than half of everyone who voted for governor.
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Filed under: Nashville TN Politics News
