House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick suggests to Andy Sher that, he might stop cooperating on promotion of projects in the districts of two legislators who are pushing a bill to require Amazon.com to collect sales taxes once it opens distribution centers in Southeast Tennessee.
McCormick says the proposal by the House and Senate finance committee chairmen (Rep. Charles Sargent, R-Franklin, and Sen. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge) to sunset the company’s present sales tax exemption goes against the state’s commitment to Amazon.
…McCormick sounded open to the idea of letting Amazon’s exemption continue for a specified time.
But absent such an agreement, he said, Sargent needs to remember corporate headquarters relocation incentives McCormick sponsored for Haslam that will likely benefit Williamson County, which Sargent represents.
He also noted that McNally’s district has hundreds of jobs dependent on nuclear waste disposal, including some waste imported from overseas.
“So I would hope Charles Sargent would appreciate that and concentrate on bringing jobs to Williamson County instead of running them out of Hamilton and Bradley counties,” McCormick said.
“[I]f I were Randy McNally, I would be very concerned about saving jobs in Oak Ridge rather than running them out of Hamilton County.”
Note: In an editorial, the Chattanooga Times-Free Press suggests that Texas and California may be setting a precedent for Tennessee in dealings iwth Amazon
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam may think he’s calmed the controversy over Amazon’s unfair refusal to collect sales taxes on purchases by Tennesseans when it opens its two planned distribution centers here. But he hasn’t. That controversy is intensifying in two of the nation’s largest states — Texas and California. Reverberations from events there will ricochet here.