Everyone knows Kansas’ food sales tax is too high. Why are lawmakers not cutting it?

Thursday is “Turnaround Day” at the Kansas Legislature. It’s an obscure moment on the calendar that marks the beginning of the end of the 2022 session.

This year, it reflects a serious failure: To date, lawmakers have yet to pass a permanent end to the state sales tax on food and food ingredients.

Eliminating the unfair, regressive, unnecessary levy should be job one for lawmakers between now and the end of the session in April. Most states don’t tax grocery food sales.

Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly wants it. Republican Attorney General Derek Schmidt, her likely November opponent, wants it. Kansans who face out-of-control grocery bills want it. It should be quick and easy.

Alas, nothing is ever simple in Topeka. Republican legislators are hemming and hawing about food sales tax relief, proposing a delay until 2024, for example, or attaching repeal to other tax relief.

Last week the state Senate taxation committee did both. Neither approach is acceptable.

Legislators can and should pass a clean bill, in March, ending the state’s 6.5% food sales tax this year on July 1. Anything else is an unacceptable disaster that would hurt Kansans every time they go to the store.

A Kansas family of four people, with a moderate budget at the grocery store, pays more than $775 a year in state food sales taxes. That’s real money for every family, but particularly for poor and moderate income residents.

That money could be used for clothing, or housing, or heat, or school supplies, or any number of needed items. Seniors on fixed incomes could also use a tax break at the store.

Ending the tax is particularly important in the Kansas City region. As it now stands, shoppers can easily cross the state line into Missouri, where the state sales tax on food is just 1.225% (including the state conservation tax.) To their credit, Missouri lawmakers are now seriously discussing full elimination of the state general sales tax on food, which should draw the attention of their Kansas colleagues.

To be sure, ending the food sales tax will cost Kansas revenue. The Senate bill now under discussion could reduce state revenues by $786 million annually, including a substantial reduction in the state highway fund.

Gov. Kelly’s office says its bill is substantially less costly, roughly $482 million in its first year, and wouldn’t reduce the highway fund.

“We’ve got the means to do this,” Kelly said in mid-February. “With the largest budget surplus in 40 years, we’ve proven that we can responsibly manage the budget while also saving Kansans’ money.”

There are troubling signs that some Republicans in Topeka want to delay the measure so Kelly won’t get the credit for a tax cut. That’s ridiculous. Kansans need weekly tax relief, and they don’t really care who gets credit.

Some lawmakers are also worried about huge tax breaks recently handed out to a mysterious industrial project. We were skeptical about the deal when it was first revealed, and remain dubious about the proposal.

But it should not and cannot be used as an excuse to deny Kansans real help in the checkout line. A poor family in Wyandotte County should not have to pay more for milk and eggs in order to provide more money for a factory. It’s that simple.

We urge lawmakers in Topeka to buckle down in the next two weeks and eliminate the state food sales tax, without attachments or delay. Kansans want and need such a bill. Their representatives should provide it.

This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 5:00 AM.