Missourians for Tax Justice
2008 Candidate Survey
Missourians for Tax Justice
2008 Candidate Survey
The questions are listed below. For the Candidates' responses, click here.
(MTJ and the Tax Justice for a Healthy Missouri campaign urge you to check the position of candidates about their support for a fair tax system that will provide adequate revenue for needed public services.
Ask candidates these questions when they ask for your support!
I. Missouri’s state tax system does not produce sufficient revenue to meet citizens’ needs. Inadequate state revenues from 2001 to 2006 resulted in $1.8 billion in cuts to vital state services. These include Medicaid, disease prevention, mental health, higher education and other important programs. These cuts have not been restored. Our K-12 public schools are underfunded by $1.5 billion. Many school districts have had to ask for regressive property tax increases as a result. A state budget deficit of at least $450 million is anticipated in FY 2010.
Our state tax system is also inequitable and unfair. Taxpayers with the lowest income have a tax burden that is almost double that of the wealthiest taxpayers.
Missouri’s individual income tax structure is extremely outdated. The brackets are graduated only up to $9,000. Above that amount, all taxable income is taxed at the same 6 percent rate. The $9,000 figure was set in 1931. Brackets and rates were set in 1971. An income of $9,000 in 1931 is equivalent to an income of more than $1.6 million in 2007. (The relative share of GDP is used to measure the relative value of $9,000.)
A bill to revise our state individual income tax structure (HB 2131) was introduced in the 2008 legislative session. This bill is a way to make our tax system more equitable, adequate and sustainable. The bill would have reduced the tax burden for 60% of Missourians and produced one billion dollars in new revenue for essential state services.
Will you support a revision of our Individual Income Tax to make it more equitable and more productive?
II. Whether our state corporate taxes are fair is a controversial question. Do corporations pay their “fair share” of the revenue the state must have to provide needed public services? How can we know?
The federal Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) requires corporations to disclose their federal income tax liabilities and other financial information. A bill was introduced in the 2008 Missouri legislative session (HB 2184) to require corporations to file an annual state tax disclosure statement. The disclosure statement is required if the corporation is publicly traded, is a financial corporation, employs 50 or more full-time employees, or has sales in excess of $10 million annually.
The legislation’s purpose: to provide information that allows citizens, lawmakers, and the news media to assess whether corporate tax rates are too high or too low, whether the tax burden is distributed equitably among corporations in the same industry, among different industries, and between small and large corporations.
Will you support legislation to require an annual state tax disclosure statement by corporations?
III. Missouri Transportation Department officials predict that highway funding will fall from $1.2 billion to about $569 million in 2010. That is the year when the state will start repaying bonds that are funding current projects.
Legislators have proposed raising regressive sales taxes and fuel taxes and converting major Interstates to toll roads, but transportation funding bills were not considered in 2008.
If local users were exempt from paying tolls, and toll roads were administered solely by the state (not privatized), would you support a constitutional amendment to allow toll roads, and legislation to implement administering them?
IV. Tax expenditures include corporate and individual income tax credits, income tax exemptions, sales tax exemptions and other devices that reduce the state’s revenue. They have been defined as “revenue not collected.” It has been estimated that the cost to the state of tax expenditures is equal to the state’s General Revenue budget.
There is no statutory provision or regulation that requires a cost/benefit analysis or a review and oversight of the vast numbers of tax expenditures which have been enacted.
Tax credits that promise social service benefits are enacted instead of raising additional revenue for Missourians’ needs — with no assurance that there is enough discretionary wealth in Missouri to actually produce sufficient support for beneficial programs through tax credits.
Do you support legislation to require review, oversight and analysis of state tax expenditures?
V. A state constitutional amendment for an appropriations spending limit has been proposed every legislative session since 2004 (HJR 70 in 2008), but has not passed. The appropriations (or spending) growth limit is the greater of zero or the sum of the annual rate of inflation and the annual Missouri population growth.
Our state constitution has safeguards for spending state tax dollars. It requires that any money spent by the state must be appropriated by the General Assembly. These elected officials are accountable to the people for the way the state's dollars are spent. Our constitution also presently requires that the state's budget must be balanced. (Only the money that the state has can be appropriated. No "deficit spending” is allowed). In addition, a state revenue limit was established in 1980 by the controversial “Hancock Amendment.” That amendment has resulted in many court cases and caused many problems for state lawmakers.
This proposed state spending (appropriation) limit would further reduce the General Assembly’s authority over state budget decisions.
Do you support a constitutional amendment for a state spending limit?
VI. Local governments can raise needed revenue only through taxes authorized by the state: regressive sales taxes, regressive property tax, and small amounts through fees and other charges. None of these sources for local revenue are based on the ability to pay. The individual income tax is the only tax that can meet this criteria for fairness.
Will you support legislation that authorizes local governments to levy, with voter approval, a surcharge on the state income tax?