A new Web page launched yesterday by the Missouri Show-Me Institute provides an interactive tool that can be utilized by residents throughout the United States to study how the tax burden in their area has changed throughout the years and how it compares with other states.

The tax-calculating tool incorporates data from numerous categories within the United States Census in addition to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States Department of Labor and the Tax Foundation.

The Web page is intended to be utilized by legislators, the press and the general public and was designed to be a nonpartisan source of information.

Although the site is owned by the Missouri Show-Me Institute, it provides tax information on each of the states, not just Missouri.

“This Web tool is valuable because it gives users the ability to compare this information with other states and over time,” Christine Harbin, research analyst for the Show-Me Institute, told Kansas Liberty. “If we restricted the information to include only Missouri, then we couldn’t compare economic aggregates, fiscal policy measures and demographics in this way.”

The online tool provides data on various aspects of Kansas taxes including sales tax, liquor taxes, the tax burden per capita and the total amount of taxes that Kansans pay the state each year.

The tax information within the database includes taxes paid to the state as well as local units of government, but does not include any federal taxes.

dollars in thousands

Kansas’ data on the Web page indicates that the tax burden in our state increased by approximately 96 percent during a 30-year period spanning from 1977 to 2007. These numbers are adjusted to include inflation.

The database shows that in 1977, Kansas residents paid out $5,978,918,000 in taxes and in 2007, Kansans paid out approximately $11,695,062,000.

The total amount of taxes paid per capita, when adjusted for inflation, increased by about 71 percent in the 25-year span between 1981 and 2006. In 1981, residents in Kansas had a tax burden of $2,347 and by 2006 that increased to $4,020.

When you compare Kansas to the other states in the West North Central Region, the tax burden in Kansas is higher than other states in some categories, but falls in the middle of the pack in other categories. The West North Central region includes Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska and South Dakota.

When examining the relationship between how taxes make up a portion of the state’s revenue, Kansas tops all of the other states in its reliance on taxpayer dollars. While 66 percent of the Kansas’s revenue came from taxpayer dollars, in 2007 only 51 percent of Nebraska’s revenue for 2007 came from taxpayer money.

Kansas’ government reliance on taxpayer dollars increased 8 percent between 2006 and 2007.

Minnesota ranked a close second in this category with 65 percent of its state revenue coming from taxes.

When looking at the total amount of taxes collected per capita, and considering inflation, Kansas ranked as the third highest out of the region with a tax burden of approximately $4,020 per resident for 2006.

South Dakota’s tax burden per resident was the lowest in 2006 with a total tax per capita of $3,012.

Out of our region, Kansas gathered the most taxes from alcohol after receiving approximately $104.3 million in alcohol taxes in 2007.

In comparison for the same year:

• Minnesota received $78.2 million in alcohol taxes.
• Missouri gathered $32.26 million.
• Nebraska received $26.6 million.
• Iowa received $14.66 million.
• South Dakota gathered $13.97 million.
• North Dakota received $6.64 million.

Rep. Jeff King, R-Independence, and vice-chair of the House Taxation Committee, said he would expect for the tax revenues in the state to increase over the next five years as the economy starts to recover. King said that any alterations to the tax burden would depend greatly on the legislation passed during the second part of the 2010 session.

“I would expect tax revenues to go up because businesses will start making more money,” King told Kansas Liberty. “Now will the rates increase, that I don’t know.”

On March 16, House Republicans brought up a tax bill for debate that any legislator could have amended to include tax increases. The bill initially included several tax increases, but King successfully stripped the bulk of the tax-increasing initiatives off the bill with little to no opposition from Democrats.

After passively allowing the King amendments to be added onto the bill, Democrats made a motion for the vote on the legislation to be delayed until the second part of the session, which reconvenes in late April. King said this strategy would make it more likely for tax increases to be successfully passed.

“Anytime there have been substantial tax increases in the state, it has happened at the end of the session when people perceive it as one of the last options to balance the budget,” King said.

One of the main arguments expected by tax-increasing proponents is that increased revenue is necessary to maintain the state’s K-12 school system. The House Appropriations Committee has already crafted a budget that would maintain K-12 funding levels at their current rate without increasing K-12 funding for fiscal year 2011. The budget would patch holes in the fiscal year 2010 and fiscal year 2011 budgets through cuts and without increasing any taxes.

Results from a statewide survey conducted by the Research Partnership of Wichita demonstrate that 81 percent of Kansas residents oppose increasing taxes to pay for K-12 funding if the funding within that district were up more than 20 percent on a per-pupil basis.

The survey was released today by Kansas Reporter and also shows that Kansas residents believe that school funding has been stagnant or actually decreased within the last five years when school funding has increased by 26 percent within the last five years.

King acknowledged that K-12 would be a hot-button issue when the session reconvenes later this month, but maintained that he was not supportive of tax increases. King said that his constituents have indicated that they are “overwhelmingly opposed” to tax increases but noted that they are also not supportive of cutting K-12 funding or funding for the disabled.

“We are facing a whole array of bad choices and we will have to make one,” King said. “I am very, very reluctant when our state is in the shape it is in to increases taxes.”

—Holly Smith

Resources:

Show-Me Institute tax tool

Kansas Reporter survey

Previously on Kansas Liberty:

House, Senate committees take a stand against increasing taxes

House Dems successfully delay tax debate

The Week in Review