Metro Nashville Vehicle Regulatory Fee (Wheel Tax): Veteran and Military Exemptions

Davidson County's wheel tax is not a county privilege tax under 5-8-102 by name. It is the Metropolitan Government's annual motor vehicle regulatory license, Metro Code 5.32.110, $55.00 on each passenger car and each motorcycle ($66.00 for commercial vehicles), sold by the Davidson County Clerk with the state registration ($29.00 for a car). The Clerk is at the Howard Office Building, 700 President Ronald Reagan Way, Suite 101. Disabled veterans and former prisoners of war. Metro's Office of Veterans Services tells veterans that a veteran with one hundred percent permanent and total disability from a service-connected cause, or any former prisoner of war, as VA determines, is exempt from the motor vehicle privilege tax on showing evidence to the collecting officer; that is the state exemption in 5-8-102, described in the Tennessee entry on the county motor vehicle privilege tax. Metro Code 5.32.110 itself lists no disabled veteran exemption: its only exception is that "with the exception of active military personnel", everyone who registers in Metro pays. The Clerk's fee page does not mention the exemption either. Bring the VA letter showing the permanent and total rating, or the prisoner of war finding, to the Clerk and ask for the exemption; the adapted-vehicle route of 5-8-102 applies at any rating. Military. Metro Code 5.32.110(C) excepts active military personnel. The Clerk's page applies it to a Tennessee service member stationed outside the county: vehicles not used in Davidson County during the 12-month registration period are exempt from the Metro fee when the owner shows a Leave and Earnings Statement listing Tennessee as home of record together with station orders.