With the prices of groceries rising in Alabama and across the country, some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing to suspend the sales tax on groceries in the Yellowhammer State.
Alabama House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels (D-Huntsville) joined Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal” Friday and proposed a plan to eventually eliminate the grocery tax.
“Right now I’d like to see some grocery tax holidays,” Daniels said, “to kind of start testing it out.”
The Democratic lawmaker advised that due to budgetary issues it would create, the legislature would have problems ending the tax immediately.
“[W]hat you will see from budget chairmen in particular, and individuals on the budget committees, they’ll be concerned about the lack of revenue coming in as a result,” he argued. “Removal of the sales tax on groceries is something that I feel should happen, but we also have to look at ways to recoup some of those dollars. I think you start with the holiday right now while we’re in-between session, and then I think you go figure out ways to generate enough revenue to be able to eliminate it.”
The minority leader is also concerned about grocery stores and local municipalities taking advantage of the tax reduction in a way that would not benefit consumers.
“But one of the things that I think we must also look at is we don’t want to give individuals an opportunity to increase the prices to make up for the revenue that the the state is losing,” he advised. “Then you start seeing, whether it’s the municipality, or you start seeing the prices of other products go up gradually to make up for it, but the state of Alabama ends up becoming the loser.”
Daniels thinks any law that would eliminate the grocery tax will need to be specific about what items would be tax free.
“I think that there are certain items that should not be taxed anyway,” he said, “so I think when we start looking at when we define grocery we need to make sure that it’s the SNAP definition of grocery.”
He reiterated that he has supported getting rid of the tax in the past and will continue to push for it in the future.
“And so we start there and we start with a grocery tax holiday,” he continued, “and I do believe, adamantly believe, that because it’s a need not a want and folks need nourishment to survive, I do think it’s something that we have to look at, and I’ve been for it and will still support it.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” Weekdays 9-11am on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
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