Tennessee lawmakers may make it more affordable and fair for small print media outlets to have a voice as the Tennessee General Assembly considers expanding a state law that reduces the tax burden on periodicals this year.

Currently, businesses in Tennessee who print and distribute a monthly newsprint publication (such as the Murfreesboro Pulse) must pay sales tax when they pay a printer to print each edition.

However, according to Tennessee Code Annotated 67-6-329, “periodicals printed entirely on newsprint or bond paper and regularly distributed twice monthly, or on a biweekly or more frequent basis” do not have to pay sales tax.

“The daily and weekly newspapers have been tax exempt for many years,” according to Rep. Mike Sparks of Smyrna, who introduced the 2019 bill that would expand the tax exemption to monthly periodicals as well. “This bill will help the fledgling newspaper industry, which has been cutting journalists’ jobs nationwide. The local newspaper reporter serves a great purpose in our democracy. We need local reporters to cover our school boards, county commissions, the state capitol, school sports and hold elected officials accountable. We certainly can’t look to CNN or Fox News to cover these issues.”

Sen. Bo Watson of Hixson sponsored the bill’s counterpart in the state senate.

Supporters of free expression, particularly those involved in monthly printed publications, applaud the measure and say that a law speaking to the frequency of a periodical clearly creates an uneven playing field among various publications, showing favor to more established operations that are able to print on a more frequent basis.

“Placing a tax on some, but not all, of those who want to get their voice out into the marketplace of ideas makes it easier for some voices and ideas to gain access to the public discourse,” one periodical publisher said. “A publication that prints every three weeks, every month or every year should have the right to the same tax privileges that those who print every day or every week benefit from.”

Constitutionally speaking, the U.S. Supreme Court has previously ruled that publications should not be taxed differently from one another.

“There is substantial evidence that differential taxation of the press would have troubled the Framers of the First Amendment,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in her opinion siding with Minneapolis Star and Tribune Company vs. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue, which struck down a Minnesota state law that gave certain tax privileges to some, but not all, periodicals in the state. “Differential treatment . . . suggests that the goal of the regulation is not unrelated to suppression of expression, and such a goal is presumptively unconstitutional.”

A representative of the Freedom Forum Initiative’s First Amendment Center said that proponents of expanding the Tennessee sales tax exemption do “have an arguable case on Constitutional grounds.”

And the owner of a Tennessee print shop said that he supported the idea of more of his customers being granted tax-exempt status, and that the Printing Industry Association of the South will lobby on behalf of the printing industry in favor of the measure.

The owners of the Murfreesboro Pulse strongly support the idea of exempting monthly newsprint periodicals from state sales tax, and said that if their family business earned a couple thousand dollars in additional profit each year it would be directed toward growing the editorial budget used to pay freelance writers, or be reinvested into other small businesses in the community, Tennessee attractions and otherwise into the state’s economy.

“Many of these less-frequent periodicals are purchasing paper, ink and printing services and then giving their product out for free for the public good,” said Murfreesboro Pulse publisher Bracken Mayo. “I advocate for exempting all publications from state sales tax in the interest of healthy public discourse and to not discourage a small operation from printing at whatever frequency they may be able.”

For more information on this measure (Tennessee HB 0899, and SB 0925) and other business before the Tennessee General Assembly, visit capitol.tn.gov.