JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Six Republicans in the Missouri Senate want to start the debate over whether to eliminate the state income tax with a move to a 4% flat tax.
Among the bills filed in advance of the 2025 legislative session are identical proposals to move to a flat tax that also include provisions that would slowly reduce the rate to zero. Part of that plan is a proposed constitutional amendment that would put a strict cap on spending and allow sales taxes to be applied to services such as auto repair labor and accountant fees.
“They really go together in tandem,” said state Sen. Curtis Trent, a Springfield Republican. “They’re sort of two pieces in one whole. It would change the conversation if the constitutional amendment wasn’t enacted.”
During this year’s election campaign, Gov.-elect Mike Kehoe promised to eliminate Missouri’s state income tax. Kehoe hasn’t outlined the details of how the tax that provided 65% of the $13.4 billion in general revenue during fiscal 2024 would be dismantled without severe cuts to state programs.
Since 2014, when lawmakers enacted a tax cut over the veto of then-Gov. Jay Nixon, Missouri’s top income tax rate has fallen from 6% to 4.8%, with another 0.1 percentage point cut set to take effect on Jan. 1. Two future tax cuts, to a 4.5% rate, are already in state law and will take effect if general revenue growth hits targets.
Along with Trent, the bill for a 4% flat tax has been introduced by GOP state Sens. Ben Brown of Washington, Nick Schroer of Defiance and Jill Carter of Granby, as well as state Sens.-elect Brad Hudson of Cape Fair and Adam Schnelting of St. Charles.
In the Missouri House, the bill and accompanying constitutional amendment have been filed by state Rep. Bishop Davidson, a Republican from Republic.
Nonpartisan legislative staff have yet to prepare cost estimates for the bills, so the impact of an immediate move to a 4% rate is unknown.
Hudson said he hasn’t discussed the proposal with Kehoe’s transition staff so he doesn’t know if it will be the favored plan. The plan for a 4% flat tax with provisions for further cuts, he said, was developed in conversations with other legislators looking for a plan that could be enacted without major disruptions.
“There seem to be a number of us that agree that the product that you are looking at is definitely a great place to start this conversation,” Hudson said.
The proposals have the backing of Americans for Prosperity-Missouri, an affiliate of the Koch brothers-founded super PAC, which endorsed the flat tax plan in a news release issued Tuesday.
The release said the organization will use digital ads, petitions, mailers, and door-to-door advocacy to promote the bills.
“It’s past time for Missouri to join the ranks of states that have moved to a flat tax and are gradually phasing out their state income taxes that are a burden to workers and families,” state director Gary Hollis said in the release.
AFP-Missouri provided feedback to legislators as they worked on the bill but did not draft the legislation, Hollis said in response to an email inquiry. Nationally, he wrote, AFP is backing tax cut proposals in several states.
The proposals are also generating opposition, including the Missouri Realtors Association.
The Realtors funded an initiative passed in 2016 to ban sales taxes on services that would be repealed by the proposed constitutional amendments.
“It’s a really bad idea,” said Sam Licklider, lobbyist for the Realtors. “Nobody will admit to thinking taxes are a good idea. But on the other hand, how are you going to run the government?”
Missouri income tax
For years, economists have described Missouri’s personal income tax as “nearly flat” because narrow tax brackets mean the top rate kicks in when taxable income exceeds $8,911.
Taxpayers are allowed two deductions from their income before calculating how much they owe. The first is the standard deduction — $14,600 for an individual this year — that matches the federal deduction. The second is a deduction for a portion of federal income taxes that starts at 35% for the lowest income groups and phases out after income exceeds $125,000.
The first $1,273 earned beyond the standard deduction is exempt from taxation. The brackets, each covering $1,273 of income, start at 2% and hit the maximum rate at $8,911 or more of taxable income.
That means the top rate is paid on income exceeding approximately $24,000 a year, or 37.5 hours a week at the current minimum wage of $12.30 an hour.
Shifting to a 4% flat tax would cost all taxpayers about $64 by eliminating brackets with a lower rate. Taxpayers would save money on income currently taxed at the highest rate, with net lower taxes starting when income exceeds $32,000.
A taxpayer with an income of $250,000 would see a tax cut of about $1,500 with a 4% flat tax compared to the 2025 rate of 4.7%. People with incomes of $250,000 or more represent only about 1.5% of all returns but nearly one-third of all income reported.
Missouri collected $9.8 billion from income taxes — before accounting for refunds — in the fiscal year that ended June 30, about 65% of general revenue. The state collected $13.4 billion in general revenue for the year after accounting for refunds.
That is enough money, Trent said.
“The goal is that the amount of revenue that’s available to the state right now would continue to be available on the same basis,” he said.
Missouri sales tax
When Missourians make a purchase subject to sales tax, they don’t pay just one tax. For state government purposes, it is actually four taxes. A myriad of local taxes imposed by counties, cities and special districts can more than double the state rate.
For general revenue purposes, the rate is 3%, applied to cars, clothes, computers and other tangible goods but excluding food purchased for home consumption. The tax generated $3.2 billion in the most recent fiscal year, about 21% of general revenue collections.
Food purchases are subject to all other sales taxes.
A tax of 1% generates money that is distributed to public schools on a per-pupil basis and a tax of 0.125% is dedicated to the operations of the Department of Conservation. The final piece is 0.1% split between state park operations and soil conservation efforts.
Including local taxes means many taxpayers pay 8% or more on purchases. The highest rate on general purchases is in St. Ann, in St. Louis County, where the rate in special districts is 12.238%.
Along with the constitutional prohibition on expanding sales tax to services, the Realtors in 2010 succeeded with an initiative that prevents sales tax from being imposed on real estate transactions.
An additional tax of 9% would be needed to generate the same general revenue from sales tax that is produced by the personal income tax.
“Folks can make an argument that a consumption tax is a better way to do business,” Hudson said. “I understand the philosophy behind that. But ultimately, what I would like to see happen is where the income tax goes away without the necessity of increasing taxes anywhere else.”
Constitutional amendment
The flat-tax proposals all make cuts beyond the move to 4% dependent on passage of a constitutional amendment intended to limit the growth of state spending.
Under the proposal, growth in total annual appropriations — $50.9 billion from all funds for the current year after vetoes by Gov. Mike Parson — would grow, or decrease, along with the state’s population. When the population grows by 1% or more in a year, the growth rate would be the cap. Population growth of less than 1% would mean a cap of 1% year-to-year.
And if the state’s population declined, state spending would have to be cut by the percentage decrease.
Any revenue of estimates would be directed to a new fund in the treasury. When the total in the fund exceeds $120 million, it would trigger a 0.1 percentage point cut in the top income tax rate, with another 0.05 percentage point for every additional $60 million available when the calculation is made.
Money in the fund could be used to cover any shortfall in available general revenue.
If it was in place during the year that ended June 30, the deposit to the “Tax Reform Fund” would have been $294 million because actual receipts exceeded the estimate made in December 2023 by that amount.
But the current revenue isn’t the only general revenue being spent by lawmakers. Even after $1 billion in vetoes, the budget will use about $1.6 billion of the $4.8 billion in general revenue surplus on hand on June 30.
The sales tax changes made by the constitutional amendment would allow the state to charge a maximum rate of 3.775% on the broader base that includes services.
The amendment would not force lawmakers to add services to the sales tax or change the rate, Trent said.
“It doesn’t require it,” he said. “It would just make it available.”
The amendment does allow one targeted sales tax that would exceed 3.775%. Anyone hiring a lobbyist would pay a sales tax of 6%.
“They want to hurt people’s ability to petition their government for redress of grievances,” Licklider said.
Missouri’s sales tax receipts have grown almost 45% since fiscal 2018, a combination of inflation of almost 25% and new revenue from online sales. In the same period, income tax collections grew by 27%.
If sales taxes continue to grow at the rate of the past 6 years, it will take about 15 years before sales tax receipts match current revenue from income tax.
“You have got to have a long time horizon upon which to accomplish any reform,” Hudson said. “A lot of the places that we’ve landed are basically designed to prevent the need for any tax increases, like shifting taxes from one area to another or any spending cuts.
“We’re limiting the conversation to how we collect taxes instead of how much taxes we should collect,” he said.
The spending cap is based on population, rather than growth in economic output or some other measure of economic activity such as personal income, because many state spending programs, such as public school aid, provide money on a per-capita basis, Trent said.
“Using population is pretty common in how a lot of the funds in the state are distributed,” he said.
Missouri’s population grew 2.8% from 2010 to 2020, lower than 39 other states. The value of all goods and services produced or provided, the gross domestic product, grew by an average of 2.5% per year in the same period.
There are a lot of state spending lines that aren’t tied to population. Every state employee who has been on the payroll since Jan. 1, 2021 has received a net 21% pay raise. Other new payroll costs include a new state government base wage of $15 an hour and a $2 night shift differential. Payroll costs have also increased due to rising contribution rates for pensions.
Inflation also pushes up the cost of goods the state purchases from asphalt for roads to Ziploc bags for food storage in state institutions.
Those factors make spending limits based on population as bad an idea as the flat tax proposal itself, Licklider said.
“You’ve got to have a basic income level to maintain a government,” he said. “How do you run a government on no money unless we want to simply not have a government, which strikes me as kind of a bad idea.”
This story from the Missouri Independent is published on KSDK.com under the Creative Commons license. The Missouri Independent is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization covering state government, politics and policy.
