Nashville residents do pay a state sales tax.
The National Football League’s Tennessee Titans ownership is one step closer to getting a new stadium which would replace a building that opened in 1999. The projected cost of the stadium-building project is pegged at $2.1 billion but that number is not set in stone and with the cost of building materials continuing to increase, the project could end up costing local taxpayers more than $760 million. The deal needs government approval and that could take up to two months. Titans ownership will kick in $840 million with that money coming from personal seat licensing sales and National Football League funding. The other $1.3 billion will come from the pockets of taxpayers, many of whom will never set foot in the stadium. Tennessee legislators have approved the allocation of $500 million in bonds to the project. The $760 million needed to complete the stadium would be funded by Metro Sports Authority revenue bonds backed by a new 1% countywide hotel occupancy tax, in-stadium sales taxes and half of the state and local sales tax revenues from a planned 130-acre stadium-village with the stadium as the anchor.
Nashville Mayor John Cooper used a sleight of hand trick explaining how his city’s residents really aren’t paying taxes going to the stadium. That’s not true as local residents do pay state taxes through a state sales tax. “This new stadium proposal protects Metro taxpayers by not spending a single dollar that could be spent elsewhere on our core priorities like education and public safety. Doing nothing was not a legal option for us, and renovating the current stadium proved to be financially irresponsible, so we are proposing a new stadium paid for by the team, the state, tourists and spending around the stadium, not by your family.”
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