KC voters keep raising their own taxes. When will enough be enough?
In a few weeks, Kansas City voters will consider two tax increases — one, a property tax increase for the Kansas City Public Library and another to raise gasoline taxes across Missouri.
Voters will be told the increases are small. If you use 20 gallons of gas a week, the fuel tax hike will cost you about $26 a year in the first year, rising to $104 a year when fully implemented.
The public library tax would cost the owner of a $200,000 home about $30 more annually.
The hikes seem manageable. But they will be considered in the context of all the tax increases and extensions approved by Kansas City’s voters in recent years.
Eight times since 2013, Kansas Citians have either enacted a tax hike or extended a tax set to expire. The taxes have paid for a long list of community needs: health care, fire protection, infrastructure improvements.
Those are all important. But voters should know: They aren’t cheap.
Figuring out the cumulative cost of the increases and extensions is complicated. The bill depends on your earnings, the value of your home, how much you spend on taxable products and other factors.
But a rough estimate is possible. The owner of a $200,000 home in Kansas City, earning $50,000 in salary, and spending $12,000 on taxable goods inside the city, will pay an additional $800 this year for local taxes approved by voters just since 2013.
The single biggest contributor to that cost is the city’s earnings tax, which collects 1 percent of wage income from everyone who lives or works in Kansas City. Voters renewed the earnings tax in 2016. They’ll vote again in 2021.
But voters have also extended or increased sales taxes. In 2014, they agreed to extend a sales tax for the fire department. In 2016, Jackson Countians (including Kansas City south of the river) extended the anti-drug COMBAT sales tax and enacted a one-eighth-cent tax for children’s services.
In 2017, the one-eighth-cent central city sales tax was enacted. In 2018, the 1-cent public improvement sales tax was renewed.
Property tax levies have risen, too. In 2013, voters extended a levy for indigent health care; in 2017, they approved a bond issue.
As a result, Kansas City’s overall tax burden is high. According to a well-respected study, the city ranks eighth in the country in overall state and local tax burden for a family earning $50,000 a year.
In Kansas City, that family paid $5,444 in state and local taxes in 2016 — more than in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta, even New York City.
City and county officials defend the tax structure. They say they’re required to pay for services the state won’t provide, such as transportation. And they point out — accurately — that voters have endorsed the increases over the years.
Yet a limit to voters’ tax support may be near.
The mayoral candidates and voters should focus directly on this issue in the coming campaign. Mayor Sly James convened a revenue commission in 2012, which recommended no significant changes to the city’s tax structure.
The next mayor should revisit the issue and appoint a new tax commission. Its members will want to look at the overall tax burden, how it may impact the poor and middle class, and whether there are alternatives to raising additional revenue.
Kansas Citians want a first-class city, and they’ve shown a willingness to approve taxes to pay for it. The city’s leaders owe it to the community to make sure the cumulative tax burden is low and fair.
This story was originally published October 14, 2018 at 5:30 AM.