TheChat: Time to eliminate corporate taxes in Missouri?

Good morning.

▪ “I see an opportunity for us to be able to market Missouri as a corporate tax-free state.” — Missouri state Sen. Will Kraus, a Lee’s Summit Republican, on his proposal to phase out the state’s corporate tax entirely.

Kraus will introduce a bill in the next session that would end the state's current 6.25 percent corporate income tax. He thinks Donald Trump’s call to cut corporate income taxes could fuel his proposal.

▪ “These were gifts with no expectation of return.” — Phil Brooks, dean of the Missouri Statehouse press corps, on lobbyists buying small gifts for Senate doorkeepers.

The doorkeepers are most often retired former state workers who put in long hours working for the state Senate or House. Leafing through lobbyists reports, Brooks found that sometimes these well-heeled influence peddlers buy small gifts of food for the doorkeepers, which Brooks sees as the spirit of Christmas seeping into legislative hallways. The doorkeepers aren’t in a position to return the favor. The lobbyists, he said, are simply showing kindness. (link via johncombest.com)

▪ “Our farm-to-market roads are getting very bad. I’ll just put it that way. They’re deplorable, maybe.” — Missouri state Sen. Brian Munzlinger, a Williamstown Republican.

Munzlinger is chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee and is now considering an increase in the gasoline tax as a way to boost transportation spending. “We really need to do something,” he said.

▪ “If people haven’t claimed it after two years or five years, then yes — it’s kind of like finder’s keepers.” — Kansas state Rep. Barbara Bollier, a Mission Hills Republican, on the prospect of using unclaimed property to fund the cash-starved state budget.

Unclaimed property is money from dormant checking and saving accounts, insurance benefits, oil and gas royalties and the contents of safe deposit boxes. Democrats oppose use of the money, which could total tens of millions of dollars. They say the money belongs not to the state, but to the people who left it there.