CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. - A bottle bill currently being debated in a state General Assembly subcommittee would make customers pay 5 cents on each beverage container purchased. But that??s not all the bill would do, writes William Beach, president of Beach Oil Company Inc., in the Leaf Chronicle: It also would cause customers to "buy their beverages over the border in Kentucky."

Beach contends that buying one case of beer, water and soda monthly in Kentucky would save a Tennessee resident $150 annually. "We expect that customers would cross the border to buy beverages because of our recent experience with the tax increase for cigarettes. When Tennessee increased the cigarette tax three years ago, Tennessee retailers reported an average 10 percent drop in cigarette sales," writes Beach.

If 10 percent of people residing in Tennessee border counties purchased beer in other states, Tennessee businesses would lose sales and state and local government would not collect as many sales tax dollars.

Bottle deposit fraud also concerns Beach: "My concern is that people would buy beverages in Kentucky and other Southeastern states, where they don??t pay a deposit, then collect the deposit when they return the out-of-state containers in Tennessee. It??s happened in Michigan, where the recycling rate has been as high as 100.41 percent, which is proof of fraud."