Cross posted in the outdoors section. I was advised to post here also.
Hi everyone, well I'm about five years from retiring From the government, I could work longer but my wife's five years older than I am and I'm just beat down and need a change. We are looking to move out of Texas to a cooler climate and have been looking at land, buying a farm with house with a minimum of 100 acres in Tennessee and have several questions.
1) I understand that Tennessee dosnt have a state income tax but a pretty high sales tax. What's the rates? Do you pay tax on agricultural equipment or is it tax exempt, dose the state have agriculture tax exemptions.
2) dose the state or county have lower property tax rates for disabled veterans?
We are looking in the central part of the state.
I'm sure I can come up with some more questions but let's start with these.
Thanks
Simba

State sales tax is 9.45%. Local sales tax varies. The total sales tax is around 9.75% most places. You can get an agricultural sales tax exemption just by filling out the form and submitting it. Depending on where you are from in Texas, you may be disappointed if you expect a cooler climate. It may be a little cooler in winter, but summers are just as hot and extremely humid.

ETA:  I don't know about property tax breaks for vets. Agricultural property is taxed at a much lower rate than residential. Have your property divided into two parcels. A small residential lot for the house, and the larger parcel agricultural.

Sales tax is nine point something percent.  If I'm not mistaken, there is a slight variation in the rate, from county to county, based on what the counties want as their cut.  Food staples (not microwave dinners) are taxed at a lower rate.  There is also a sales tax holiday, each year, for 'back to school' supplies, though some laptops and desktop computers also qualify for no tax during those periods, and you don't have to be a student.

I don't know about agricultural taxes, but there is a state law allowing owners of more than a certain amount (10 acres?) to have a timber management plan drawn up and reclassify the land as 'forest', and the county tax office is then required to tax the property at 25% of what they would normally tax it at.  Of course, that comes with a few limitations (have to follow the management plan, allow inspection of the property when applying for the reclassification...).

Nashville/Davidson County and some of the surrounding areas are currently ridiculous on real estate pricing, due to all the yankees and west coasters that have decided Nashville is a hip place to be.  Probably have to look two counties away, to find cheap land.

There are different ways to configure your farm, 15 acres min. (At least for us)

No vehicle inspection unless you live in a couple cities.

Wheel tax can be a big deal, here it is $40 a year per vehicle (Johnson co)

Find a good local cpa that does small farms,they are your friend

Extra land that you dont want to mow or hay can be leased out to someone, we do about 9 acres of ours, our deal?
I get 48 square bails (mix of 1st and 2nd cut and 28 of those are from another field he does which have a nice sweet orchard my alpacas love)

He fertilizes with horse manure and bush hogs etc.

I have zero maintenance of the fields and love it.

Also since garden is done for the year, he dropped off 4 horses and a colt, to chill this winter, win/win for both of us.

Wife loves to watch them and spoil them

Sorry to rant op

Also decide what you want to "farm" and make sure there is a "large animal" vet close

When you go into a cat/dog vet and ask to buy or treat a non cat or dog you get

Good luck op, also you can visit your counties ag dept (or email UT they have ag extentions in most counties)

@kittyhawk

State sales tax is 7% on most goods/services, 4% on food/food ingredients (not prepared food).
Local sales tax adds max of 2.75%, so the highest total tax in the state is 9.75%.

Here are the local rates around the state:

https://www.tn.gov/assets/entities/revenue/attachments/taxlist.pdf

- OS

Great information guys, thank you very much. If I swing the week off we plan on a trip the week of thanksgiving. I plan on starting around the Chattanooga area and working our way north.

It's not going to be much cooler.