That 1% deducted from your paycheck: How many of you decide how KC spends it? | Opinion
At the Boston Tea Party, American patriots incensed at English taxes on tea imposed by a parliament in which they didn’t have a vote gave voice to one of the animating ideas of our country’s foundation: no taxation without representation.
That principle, no dusty relic of 1776, it is the bedrock of legitimate government. Yet in Kansas City, we have built a system that flagrantly violates it. The city’s 1% earnings tax — sometimes called the “e-tax” — extracts money from roughly 200,000 nonresidents who work within city limits but live in the suburbs of Missouri and Kansas. These commuters help generate hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue — money that funds police, parks, streets and the very economic engine that draws them downtown every day.
Without these taxpayers, the city’s sales and real estate taxes would have to double or more to make up the difference on the backs of those who reside in the city. Kansas City takes their money, but doesn’t have to listen to them. That’s no recipe for good government.
Kansas City’s earnings tax is not a new idea. Enacted decades ago, it requires every person who earns money inside the city, whether they sleep in a Plaza loft or a Lee’s Summit bedroom, to surrender 1% of those wages. Residents pay on all their income, even if earned elsewhere. Nonresidents pay only on what they earn here. The distinction sounds fair on paper: You use our streets, you help pay for them.
Giving conservative suburbs a voice
But the city never extended the corresponding right to have a say in how that money is spent. Nonresidents cannot vote for mayor, City Council members or on ballot measures that set tax rates or spending priorities. They are voiceless contributors to a government that can raise their taxes, change their commutes or redirect their dollars without ever asking their opinion. Maybe giving more conservative suburban voters a voice in city affairs would make state legislators less likely to stick their noses in our business.
It is Kansas City’s luxurious position that the other guy gets to pay the city’s way. In that, we’ve become used to an everyday injustice. Even Mayor Quinton Lewis knows its wrong. In his statement on redistricting Tuesday, he complained that Republican plans “have always been an effort to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of our voices.” Pot meet kettle.
Consider the office worker from Overland Park who pays $2,000 a year in e-tax yet has no voice when the city council debates transit projects that will shape her daily drive. Or the restaurant server from Independence whose tips are taxed by a city whose schools, crime policies and development decisions affect his ability to pay his rent.
None are free riders. They are the economic lifeblood of downtown. Their labor fills office towers, supports small businesses and keeps the tax base afloat. Yet when City Hall decides how to spend their money, whether on stadium subsidies, police overtime or abuse settlements or downtown revitalization, they are told to stay in their lane. Literally.
State lawmakers have little power over cities
Critics will object that representation already exists, though indirectly. Suburban legislators in Jefferson City or Topeka can influence state law, and nonresidents can lobby. That is a polite fiction. Local government is where the rubber meets the road: zoning variances, business licensing, public safety priorities. A state senator cannot cast a vote on a Kansas City Council resolution. Lobbying is not voting. The principle our founders fought for was direct accountability: Those who pay should elect those who spend.
My liberal friends should remember their argument that D.C. should be a state so that its residents have representatives in Congress to help write the tax and budget rules for national government. The same principle applies here.
The solution is straightforward. Kansas City should amend its charter to grant voting rights in municipal elections to any nonresident who pays the earnings tax. Registration could be tied to the annual earnings tax filing. A commuter who paid tax on $100,000 of Kansas City wages would receive one vote; someone who earned $10,000 here would receive the same single vote. One person, one equal vote, earned by contribution.
Precincts could be organized by workplace ZIP code or online voting made available for verified payers. The logistics are manageable. Kansas City, which is already required to vote on the earnings tax every five years, could put this reform on the next ballot.
If the city truly needs the revenue — and the numbers show it does — then it must honor the principle that justifies the tax in the first place. Representation is the price of a legitimate government gives those who fund it. A government that taxes without consent breeds resentment. A government that taxes with consent builds trust.
Kansas City stands at a crossroads. It can cling to an outdated model that treats nonresident workers as ATMs , or it can live up to the American promise that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. That includes those who pay the bills.
There’s nothing democratic about holding an election in which many of the people whose money is at stake, don’t get to vote.
David Mastio is a columnist for The Kansas City Star and McClatchy.
This story was originally published March 25, 2026 at 7:15 AM.
