Ben Cunningham speaks to the crowd at the evening event. Credit Nina Cardona/WPLN
More than a hundred people showed up Wednesday night to voice their distaste for the idea of a state income tax. A constitutional amendment specifically barring Tennessee from ever adopting one is on the ballot in November.
Tennessee is one of seven states without an income tax, and there’s currently no active push within state government to create one. But activist Ben Cunningham told the crowd the potential revenue from a tax on wages will always be attractive to some politicians.
“We need to take it off the table completely so we never have to pay an income tax in Tennessee!”
The last serious attempt to create an income tax in Tennessee was in 2002. The proposal from then Governor Don Sundquist, a Republican, was met by raucous protests, including a brick through his office window. The sales tax hike that passed instead was the last increase to the state’s primary income source.
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