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Military Tax Exemption Expected to Be Good for Region

By Angela Hatton

Hopkinsville, KY – January 1 marked the first day for the Kentucky military tax exemption. The Kentucky General Assembly passed the measure that excludes soldiers and their families from income taxes last year to encourage more soldiers to live in Kentucky. Hopkinsville-Christian County Chamber of Commerce Interim Director Carter Hendricks says a five year marketing campaign has already brought more Fort Campbell soldiers to the area.

"It's 36-hundred and 59 as of the end of December. That's the most current data that we have. When we started Operation Left-Turn about five years ago that number was 22-hundred military household electric connects. So that represents about a 14-hundred household increase. By percentages that's about a 12 percent more families living in Christian County, in Kentucky, than were five years ago."

Hendricks says the impact from the tax exemption will be hard to measure at first. Fourteen-thousand Fort Campbell soldiers are expected to deploy to Afghanistan by the end of this summer. Hendricks says that means the chamber won't have accurate data for another year and a half.