Knoxville, TN Local Taxes & Fees: Business Tax Classification (2026)

Knoxville, Tennessee's business license tax chapter declares dozens of occupations taxable privileges, each carrying its own privilege tax rate. Where a single business could fall under two or more of those tax sections at once, Sec. 16-7 resolves the overlap: the business owes only the single highest tax among the applicable sections, not a stacked total. The provision is explicit that this doesn't let a business avoid separate privilege taxes for genuinely separate business lines -- it applies only when one business activity happens to fit more than one classification. The tax is paid to the city director of finance under Sec. 16-5.