TOPEKA, Kan. — Top Republican legislators in Kansas have renewed a fight with the Democratic governor over income tax cuts that have drawn bipartisan criticism as favoring the wealthy, with no sign of a break in an impasse that thwarted tax relief last year.
The House was scheduled to vote Thursday on a GOP plan for cutting income, sales and property taxes by a total of $1.6 billion over three years. The Senate approved it Wednesday, 25-11, but with four members absent, it appeared that Republican supporters were at least a vote short of a two-thirds majority in the 40-member chamber needed to override an expected veto from Gov. Laura Kelly.
Top Republicans want to impose a single personal income tax rate of 5.25%, replacing three rates that top out at 5.7%, starting in 2025. Kelly strongly opposes the idea, and projections from the state Department of Revenue have shown that with a single rate, the largest savings in raw dollars would go to people with incomes exceeding $250,000 a year.
The dispute over the single-rate or “flat” plan blocked a large tax cut in Kansas last year, when a dozen other states cut taxes, according to the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation. Kansas now expects to have nearly $4.5 billion in surplus cash at the end of June, equal to 17% of the state’s current $25 billion budget.
“We need to give the money back,” said state Sen. Mike Thompson, a conservative Kansas City-area Republican.
GOP lawmakers who drafted the plan included provisions that would exempt the first $20,300 of a married couple’s income from state taxes — more if they have children, with the amounts rising with inflation after 2025. Backers noted that all income groups would see cuts and that some poor families would see their tax burdens erased.
Republican leaders married the income tax proposals to a proposal from Kelly to eliminate the state’s 2% sales tax on groceries starting April 1 and proposals she embraced to exempt all of retirees’ Social Security…
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