From Missouri Matters:
Emily: “What do you think about HJR36? It’s a fair tax for Missouri that would get rid of the state income tax and replace revenue with a broad – based sales tax. The House just passed it, and if it were to pass the Senate Missourians would have to vote to enact the tax switcheroo.”
0 responses so far ↓
1 J.T. // Apr 30, 2009 at 8:10 pm
[Here is the same response I made on MO Matters]
There are reasons for and against it… but it does seem like a better system for taxation. Overall I’d say it’s a good idea.
One thing I’m curious of – how will it affect the people in the KC area that live in Missouri but work in Kansas? They’ll still pay the Kansas income tax but what happens to the MO tax credit they currently get for paying out-of-state income taxes? They’ll still have their income taxed and on top of that they’ll pay a higher sales tax.
I guess that would be incentive to not work in Kansas.
2 Paul Ground // Apr 30, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Besides the problem alluded to by J.T. above (which also exists in the St. Louis area between Missouri and Illinois), one other difficulty of a state “Fair Tax” proposal occurs to me.
In most metro-St. Louis municipalities, the existing sales tax rate is between 6.5% and 7%. The tax rate proposed in HJR 36 is 5.11%. At present, our sales tax is about the same, or perhaps slightly more, than sales taxes in Illinois. But if we raise our present sales tax to approximately 12%, it seems to me that Illinoisians who now shop at the Galleria, Chesterfield Mall, and other Missouri centers might learn to find St. Clair Square a more attractive alternative. The same disincentive would apply to Missouri tourism, which could be a blow to cities like Branson and to convention centers like Kansas City and St. Louis.
3 Carl Bearden // May 1, 2009 at 8:49 am
Paul – the Hancock amendment would require munis to readjust their rates downward to collect the same amount on a broader base. The total rate would go down not up.
See http://www.americansforprosperity.org/042009-fair-tax-passes-missouri-state-house-border-argument-data-provided for comparisons.
4 saveferris94 // May 4, 2009 at 3:03 pm
http://www.mofairtax.com provides some ineresting info on fair tax… I think that the pros definitely outweigh the cons, even when considering the unfortunates as mentioned by J.T.
5 John // Jun 15, 2009 at 6:33 am
J.T I wouldn’t worry too much about the people that work in Kansas it seems that Kansas will not be far behind Missouri in enacting the FairTax. Check out this video.
http://www.americansforprosperity.org/050409-missouri-fair-tax-proposal-explained
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