Increased Gas Tax may save you money at the grocery store

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.- The new Tennessee Gas Tax goes into effect tomorrow and we are looking at how this will impact you, the consumer. The new Tennessee Gas Tax goes into effect tomorrow and we are looking at how this will impact you, the consumer.

The Transportation Coalition of Tennessee says while gas prices go up, the amount you spend in the grocery store will go down.  The Transportation Coalition says that you will see an increase of a little more than $40 per year if you have one car and $60 if you have two.  They say the money that you will save on grocery taxes will keep you in the black.

Lucas Salyer says, “This legislation will actually give us safer roads and better roads at the same time.”

The IMPROVE Act will go into effect July 1st with the goal of improving both major and minor roads in congested areas all over the state of Tennessee. The improvements will be funded by the increased gas tax. However, there was a cut made to the grocery tax in hopes of eliminating the overall impact to your pockets.

Brandon Ellis says “If one is going to increase and one is going to decrease, it may kind of off set the two and I may not have to experience much of a change.”

Ellis owns the Chatter Box Restaurant in downtown Chattanooga and says he knows this is just the name of the game.

“It’s just something that I have to factor in as a cost to do business I can’t really get bent out of shape, I’m going to have to buy diseal, I’m going to have to buy groceries,” says Ellis.

Both needed to run his brick and mortar restaurant and his food truck. The Transportation Coalition of Tenessee says you’ll save roughly $85 a year at the store while spending a little more than $40 at the pump thus saving the average family $20-$40 a year, but Sayler says that’s not all.

Salyer  says,”Less time in traffic it will actually save them fuel because they are not sitting in that congestion so that 4 cent increase is not going to be that big of a deal in the long run.”

He says with the implementation of this tax on a holiday weekend takes the burden off Tennesseans and we share the load with those traveling to and through the area. He says with the implementation of this tax on a holiday weekend takes the burden off Tennesseans and we share the load with those traveling to and through the area.  He believes this will also prepare the city for the one million people expected to move here by 2020.