Respondents to on-street interviews by the Lawrence Journal-World said sales tax was a fair way for local and state governments to generate revenue.
“It affects everyone the same,” said one woman.
Well, no it doesn’t, and Bob Huskey, an Allen County commissioner and Iola grocer before his death a few years ago, would have been quick to disagree. “The most regressive tax,” he often said when the topic of a sales tax arose.
The sales tax does affect everyone, but hardly the same.
In Iola today total sales tax is 8.75 percent, or $8.75 on a $100 purchase. And it’s the same for groceries, a new shirt or anything else regardless of income.
A family with income of $75,000 a year is not uncommon when both spouses have good jobs, or $20,000 for a family of one bread-winner working at entry level.
Assuming both purchase $10,000 worth of mostly food and other necessities a year, the tax of $875 is much more of a burden on the family with the lower income; doing without becomes a way of life.
Most sales tax revenue goes to the state, at 6.5 percent. Iola and the county each have a 1 percent tax, a quarter-cent supports Allen County Regional Hospital.
Overall the tax is difficult for many, in more than little measure because of its application to groceries, the most prominent financial denominator for families. In the union 31 states charge no sales tax on food, and among those that do, only one, Mississippi, charges more than Kansas at 7 percent. The Kansas tax, 6.5 percent, is applied to all purchases and services.
THE STATE’S consumption tax, which some politicians like to call it, has been raised twice in the past several years because of Gov. Brownback’s failed experiment of cutting the income tax to stimulate economic growth.
Growth we’ve had, though not robust and very likely no more than would have occurred had Brownback left the income tax as it were.
Also, he and legislators, just as guilty, would not be puffing smoke on mirrors to hide their Machiavellian machinations to balance the budget.
The sales tax first was bumped to 6.3 percent, from an even 6, on the state level to deal with shortfalls in education, ordered by the Kansas Supreme Court. It then was lowered to 6.15 three years ago and raised to 6.5 percent on July 1, 2015. The latest tax increase was by all accounts the highest in Kansas history.
The vote enabling the higher tax came after an extended session in the early hours one morning — when most legislators capitulated to fatigue and frustration — to deal with a huge budget shortfall.
Meanwhile, sales tax collections haven’t been as large as expected because of slippage, a term that describes what occurs when a resident of one governing body makes purchases elsewhere to save on sales tax.
