How often have you heard of prices going down, especially due to a tax going away? That is about to happen in Anderson County. The half-cent sales tax put in place 16 years ago to help finance the Anderson County Jail is about to expire. The tax will end on December 31st, meaning that prices on most retail goods will go down slightly. Local retailers will reprogram their cash registers to reflect a ½ cent savings per every dollar of sales – from 1.5 cents to 1 cent of County tax.
Anderson County voters approved the addition of the tax in 2006 as part of the funding arrangement to cover the costs of building the jail, along with a backup property tax and revenue from renting cells to out-of-area law enforcement departments, and thanks to better than expected tax yields, as well as revenues from housing out-of-county inmates, the law enforcement center was paid off in September.
