Downtown Nashville businesses are required to pay a fee, in addition to sales and liquor taxes. Effective July 1, state law increased the fee from .25% to .50%. The increase is allocated for downtown safety and cleanliness.  

This means that downtown business owners are now paying 50 cents for every $100 in sales. 

The CBID fee is imposed on retailers in the area generally bounded by the Cumberland River, Lafayette Street, Rosa L. Parks Boulevard and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. The fee is for recruiting major conventions, cleanliness and security in the district. 

The following are not subject to the CBID fee: 

hotel-motel lodging; sporting and live ticketed events; professional services; wine, spirits and high gravity beer sold by the drink; newspapers and other publications; parking.

This means that the CBID fee must be paid on all those long-neck beers sold down on Lower Broad. 

Makes us want to drop a quarter in the jukebox to hear Merle Haggard’s “The Bottle Let Me Down” 

I’ve always had a bottle I could turn to. 

And lately I’ve been turnin’ every day. 

The Department of Revenue collects CBID funds and distributes them to Metro. Businesses must report CBID fees and pay them to Revenue no later than the 20th of each month.  Revenue advises businesses to file a separate Schedule D on their sales and use tax returns.

If you want to charge customers for the extra 0.5%, you must separately itemize the CBID fee on the receipt.  Otherwise, the tax man says you have to eat the fee.  According to Revenue, you cannot simply increase sales tax to 9.75%, the fee must be separately itemized.

See the attached publication from Revenue for more information.