Actual Average City Tax Increase Is 60%, Not 24%

  • Saturday, August 23, 2025

With the City of Chattanooga final public hearing and vote this coming Tuesday at 3:30 p.m., some critical information has come to light.

A calculator created by a local Director of Data Analytics shows the average city taxes to be paid under the Mayor's new proposed tax rate to be more impactful than previously thought. The average city tax increase would be 60% and $565.87 per year. It also shows 8 out of 9 districts averaging above $500 annual impact and two districts seeing over $700 annual per year impact. The range of impact per address goes from -36% to 298%. Breaking down the impact, 32% of the addresses would see an impact of 50% or more and 36% of addresses would see an impact of 26% to 49% (chart below/attached). These impacts include the assessment impacts for residential and commercial properties.

Information provided by Mayor Kelly's office showed an average impact of 24% or $401.50 per year.

There is an alternate proposal co-sponsored by Councilman Chip Henderson and Councilman Jeff Davis that would cut the Mayor's tax impact by more than half.

View city-wide and address-specific tax impacts here. All source data comes from the city's open data portal.

Ryan Ewalt
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