News Channel 9 explored a proposal to end sales taxes on groceries in Tennessee and possibly replace the lost revenue with higher taxes on businesses. CRER director and chief economist Howard Wall was concerned that these additional distortions were economically inefficient:
A concern Howard Wall, director and chief economist at the Center for Regional Economic Research with UTC, also has.
“Those taxes are passed on to consumers and to everybody else, and you’re just increasing the distortions of the tax by trying to micromanage social policy.”
Wall says if the goal is to make groceries more affordable, there are other options.
“Food stamps, for example, are a better way of having food be affordable to people.”