State decision costs Clinton $200k
The state of Tennessee has approved an appeal by a taxpayer to get $200,000 back in taxes paid to the city of Clinton.
Clinton Finance Director Chris Phillips told the City Council about this development at its Aug. 26 meeting.
He said the state kept the taxpayer anonymous, but he planned to find out who it was.
City Manager Roger Houck said it appeared to be a merchant who found an apparent overpayment of sales taxs.
Phillips said it would be “a bit of a hit” and “cut a normal month for us in half.”
“If it happened in the last month that I’m reporting, we still would be over the year before,” he said.
“The year we just closed out, we closed out at $232,000 over the prior year,” Houck said. “So basically, if they pull that back it’s kind of like we had an even year.”
Vice Mayor Larry Gann pointed out that merchants pay the sales taxes they collect directly to the state, and the state then gives the city its share. The city isn’t the collector.
“I guess you could say we’re the whipping boy in this case, because merchants have paid in, the state’s taken the money, they’ve decided they took in too much, but we’re having to give back,” Gann said.
“So for the public’s knowledge, we didn’t do anything wrong; it’s a state and merchant situation. Our hands are clean.”
Phillips said businesses are allowed to go back three years to correct errors if they find they have filed incorrectly.