Voters in Kansas City easily approve renewal of 1% earnings tax for five more years
Kansas City voters easily approved the city’s 1% earnings tax in Tuesday’s municipal election.
Unofficial election results show the 1% tax won overwhelming support in the three largest jurisdictions voting on the matter.
In the Jackson County portion of Kansas City, about 84% of voters approved the ballot question, according to the Kansas City Election Board.
In Clay and Platte counties, more than 65% of voters approved the 1% earnings tax.
In Cass County, only one voter weighed in on the tax, voting against it.
“I’m ecstatic about today’s result, which protects city jobs and our investment in critical services,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a statement. “I’m humbled and grateful that after one of the most challenging years in our city’s history, Kansas Citians showed confidence in their leaders and our efforts to build a safer, healthier, and stronger Kansas City.”
In place since the 1960s, the earnings tax is levied on anyone who lives or works in Kansas City, as well as on profits of companies that operate in the city.
Supporters of its continuation say the earnings tax is the most important source of revenue for Kansas City’s budget. Kansas City is expected to receive nearly $268 million from the earnings tax during its upcoming fiscal year, which accounts for 40% of its general fund revenue.
Critics of the earnings tax say it stifles growth for Kansas City and St. Louis, another city that has an earnings tax.
St. Louis-area businessman and political activist Rex Sinquefield, a board member for the Show Me Institute, helped get a statewide ballot initiative passed in 2010 that now causes Kansas City voters to have to renew the earnings at the ballot box every five years.
Voters so far have sided overwhelmingly with keeping the earnings tax in place. Around 80% of voters approved the measure the previous two elections.
After the results of Tuesday’s elections, Lucas called on lawmakers in Jefferson City to remove the expensive requirement of spending taxpayer money to hold an election on the earnings tax every five years.
“Kansas Citians have spoken, and want control of their local affairs,” the mayor said.
Kansas City businesses, civic groups and unions wrote big checks to support continuing the earnings tax.
Together KC is the political action committee supporting the earnings tax renewal. It has spent at least $1 million on the campaign.
“Kansas City voters made the right decision today,” Joe Reardon, president and CEO of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, said in a news release. “By once again renewing the earnings tax, we’ve assured that first responders and other vital city services will have a stable source of revenue. This allows Kansas City, and by extension our entire region, to emerge from this pandemic on the right path and look to a robust and promising future.”
This story was originally published April 6, 2021 at 8:52 PM.
