A number of Nashville businesses are among the more than 58,000 corporations to cash in on a $1.5 billion franchise tax refund passed by the Tennessee General Assembly last year.
The Republican-led legislation removed the property portion of the tax, now allowing businesses to request refunds for the previous three years if they had previously filed taxes via the property provision.
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On May 31, the Tennessee Department of Revenue published a list of businesses that applied for the tax rebate. The list will remain public via the state website only until June 30 and will then be removed.
The database does not show the exact amount each business will get in refunds, but instead separates them into categories of businesses receiving less than $750, receiving between $750 and $10,000, and receiving more than $10,000.
Nearly 16,000 companies will receive a refund worth more than $10,000. These include national corporations like Amazon, AT&T, FedEx, General Motors and Tesla. An array of health care groups are cashing in on the refund, including locally headquartered Acadia Healthcare, Community Health Systems and HCA Healthcare.
Other Nashville-area companies taking a chunk of the $10,000-plus refund are CoreCivic, Cracker Barrel, Dollar General, Delek, Nissan, Tractor Supply and Vanderbilt University.
The Lee Company, formerly run by Gov. Bill Lee before he took office in 2019, will also receive a refund in excess of $10,000. Lee placed the company in a blind trust just before he was inaugurated as governor.
The state has said that the change to the franchise tax could result in a decrease of $405 million in state revenue each year.
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When the tax legislation passed the General Assembly last year, it received vehement pushback from state Democrats, who claimed a lack of transparency. Democrats continue to speak out against the refunds, often referring to them as corporate handouts.
“Lee and Republicans have driven our state right off the fiscal cliff in less than 15 years, and every working and middle-class family will end up paying the price for their fiscal recklessness,” says Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) in a press release.
A full list of businesses set to receive refunds can be found on the Department of Revenue website until June 30.
This article was first published by our sister publication the Nashville Post.
