Jackson Jambalaya

or maybe because there's no economic base? and no leadership to acquire one?

Tourism tax is usually a tax on tourist type services. Restaurants, hotels, etc.

$30M from 1% sales tax equates to $3 BILLION dollars in sales. According to the last data available, the City of Jackson had about $213 million in gross sales that tax was collected on during the month of May. That includes cars, food, retail, services, utilities, etc. That annualizes to $2.5 billion.

The plan must be for a 1% increase in tax on all sales. That's a big difference from the "Occupancy/Hotel" tax assessed by other cities listed in the comparative chart. Besides, I bet Jackson already has an occupancy tax.

Good luck getting that passed.

Annualize February receipts, which represent December Christams sales, and your model is as distorted as simply using May as a correlator.

The only tourism tax is going to be folks who decide to visit downtown locally. Then there is the fact that most politicians could contribute via tourism tax. Who the hell plans a trip to Jackson? I mean really. Who? Maybe back in the day when all the big names in music used to party down here, but now? We need Two Lakes established as an incentive to tourism before we start the discussion about tourism tax.

2.5 MM people a year, Cheerio.

www.visitjackson.com

This is so typical. Raise the tourism taxes and do it. Do anything. Just do it.

Ben Allen's expertise in finance is about equal to Kingfish's own in brain surgery.

"This is so typical. Raise the tourism taxes and do it. Do anything. Just do it."

Last in reading, last in education, next to last in per-capita income, first in obesity, first in unwed mothers, second in "laziness", yada yada yada.

Let's do nothing and continue this road to success.

"Last in reading, last in education, next to last in per-capita income, first in obesity, first in unwed mothers, second in "laziness", yada yada yada.

Let's do nothing and continue this road to success"

A new arena or aquarium, etc will do nothing to fix those problems. Get a clue.

West Jackson looks like Belize.

@ 7:21 - That's not fair to the good people of Belize.

Cheerio!

Has anyone here been to Atlanta lately? 2.5MM LIVE THERE...don't visit there.

Mr. Fish, slightly off the subject but speaking of Jackson going concerns; I had dinner at Olga's last night. The food, drink and hospitality were excellent. The place was a little warm but I suppose that is b/c of the small rooms. They were not turning many tables but it is late July so that probably is to be expected. Anyway I will eagerly suggest it to my friends.

You might find this of interest Kingfish especially as your DJP friends and the other downtown-or-bust denizens release their full-throated applause for Harvey Johnson's reckless accumulation of more debt, and private debt guarantees, into gale-force headwinds of Jackson's rapidly eroding tax base.

Taxpayers are slowly realizing that their states and municipalities face growing costs—above all, debt and pension obligations—that will be hard to reduce. The squeeze is already forcing cities and states to cut basic services, since they can’t risk defaulting on their debt. But these politically unpalatable moves are troubling more and more observers of the muni market. Nicole Gelinas has warned in these pages that “once state and local governments have borrowed too much, they may well find a way not to pay their lenders back” (see “Beware the Muni-Bond Bubble,” Spring 2010). Similarly, Rick Bookstaber, a senior policy advisor to the Securities and Exchange Commission, shook the market recently by observing that it has all the characteristics in place for a crisis that might unfold like the home-foreclosure mess: a few municipalities could declare bankruptcy, decline to honor their debts, and unleash “a widespread cascade in defaults.” If that painful scenario emerges, it will be because we have too long ignored how politicians have become addicted to debt.