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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKansas ends record-breaking long session with trickle UP tax bill
ThinkProgress
After Cutting Taxes On The Rich, Kansas Will Raise Taxes On The Poor To Pay For It
Kansas lawmakers concluded the longest legislative session in state history Friday night by approving a slate of regressive tax hikes that will balance the states budget by targeting low-income workers and their families.
More than half of the $384 million in new revenue expected from the tax hike will come from cigarette taxes and sales taxes, two policies described as regressive because they fall more heavily on lower-income taxpayers than on the wealthy. Even though everyone who shops will pay the new 6.5 percent sales tax rate up from 6.15 percent in previous years, and the 8th-highest of any state according to the Tax Foundation the move is regressive because poorer shoppers already have to stretch each dollar farther than their more flush counterparts.
The state offers a limited tax credit for grocery purchases to low-income families that slightly offsets the unevenness of the sales tax impact. But that credit is capped at $500 and cannot be claimed by families earning over $30,615 a year. A family of four that earns too much to qualify for the credit will pay nearly $700 a year in sales tax payments on their food, according to a Kansas City Star analysis of Fridays bill that found the bulk of the burden falls on people making less than $50,000 annually.
Families with more slack in their budgets to absorb the sales tax hike are also getting to retain the vast majority of the windfall delivered to them in 2012 and 2013 by Gov. Sam Brownbacks (R) massive tax cuts for the wealthy. Those packages drove rates up for the poorest 20 percent of the state, provided a very small net reduction in tax liabilities for middle-class earners, and gave about $20,000 a year on average back to the richest hundredth of taxpayers.
Fridays bill keeps those windfalls in place, while delaying a further reduction in income tax rates that was part of Brownbacks previous initiative. It barely exacts any toll from the top end of the income spectrum, mostly by reducing the proportion of property tax and mortgage interest payments that are tax deductible in the state.
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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/06/16/3669801/kansas-sales-tax-hike-budget-deal/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tptop3&elqTrack=true&elqTrackId=89156c97ce684319931771e5284dc9f7&elqaid=25909&elqat=1
HassleCat
(6,409 posts)The sales tax is truly regressive because poor people don't have the dodges and scams wealthy people use to avoid paying sales tax. If you have enough money, you can maintain a business or two just to avoid sales tax by (for example) claiming your trip to the lumber yard is for supplies to upgrade your hobby farm. Cigarette taxes do hit poor people harder, but tobacco and alcohol taxes are completely avoidable for everyone, so sorry but no sympathy there.
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)which I thought was an abomination when I lived in Tennessee and is so in Kansas as well. I can't imagine a more regressive tax.
HassleCat
(6,409 posts)The states that tax food are just out to take from the poor and give to the rich. You're absolutely right.
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)doubtful.
CrispyQ
(36,511 posts)I almost wish I believed so I could see their faces when Jesus tosses their hateful asses into the eternal fiery pit.
Matariki
(18,775 posts)I hope the majority of people getting screwed in Kansas come to their senses and eat the handful of people who are screwing them.
More realistically, this will just reinforce the tax==bad idée fixe and cause them to demand even bigger tax cuts that benefit the super wealthy.
Panich52
(5,829 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)I think that is called a luxury tax.