So glad I woke up this morning in my cabin, rather than a Tennessee hotel. After all, I might be looking at the prospect of having my breakfast taxed!

Yes, according to Nashville’s Tennessean, “the state wants to tax the lodging businesses for the food that they offer as free breakfasts as part of their room rate.”

State officials stress that the businesses would be taxed and not the hungry patrons.

Regan Farr, commissioner of the Department of Revenue, doesn’t believe hotels would pass the tax on to consumers.

The proposal is in a much broader tax provisions bill sponsored by state Sen. Jim Kyle (D) of Memphis and State Rep. Mike Turner (D) of Nashville.

Before anyone comments, think for a moment. All food items already have sales tax computed at the point of consumption. A wholesaler doesn’t pay sales tax, a grocery store doesn’t pay sales tax, but the person (or company) that buys the food to eat it does already pay sales tax.

The lodging businesses are already paying sales tax on those breakfast items when they buy them from the grocery. They have already computed that tax (as well as the cost of the food) into their room rates. Noone really believes that all those free breakfasts are really free. They ain’t lunch, but remember…”They ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” either.

Gentlemen, please consider that sales tax cannot be computed on the same item more than once. If you tax the food as part of the room rate, then the hotel immediately becomes a wholesaler and no longer pays the tax at the grocery.

Possible breakfast cost, $5.00. Tax (@9.25%), 46 cents.
New tax on breakfast   = + .46
Tax not paid at grocery = - .46
NET INCREASE IN REVENUE = 0.00

Commissioner Farr, Senator Kyle and Representative Turner are brilliant!!! A new tax that cost the taxpayers nothing! But then again raises no revenue either.

Don’t be too hard on these gentlemen, after all, they were probably schooled in the state’s education system.

But if we are to have a Free Tennessee, we need legislators who can add and subtract and reason better than these idiots.

From Solitude,
David O Jones