Activist groups join forces to respond to proposed taxation shift

More than 200 people showed up yesterday at Hatch Auditorium in south Springfield for what was billed by organizers as an emergency mass meeting on a plan for dramatic changes to the state’s tax structure.

The meeting was put on by Missouri Jobs with Justice, Abortion Action Missouri, PROMO Missouri, Springfield Tenants Unite, the Immigrant Justice Collaborative, Springfield NAACP, the League of Women Voters of Southwest Missouri, Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, the Missouri Budget Project and Beacon Reproductive Health Network.

The meeting was in response to two linked proposals, House Joint Resolutions 173 and 174, by Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe and House Speaker Jon Patterson to raise sales taxes while cutting $5 billion from the state budget.

The legislation would incrementally decrease individual income tax with the aim of eliminating it by 2032 and could expand sales and use taxes on transactions involving goods and services.

In its analysis of the proposal, the nonpartisan Missouri Budget Project, which advocates for low-income state residents, says the proposal purports to eliminate the state’s income tax but in reality introduces a two-step process to swap the individual income tax for greatly expanded sales taxes. The change would be achieved through a constitutional amendment.

“This switch would increase total taxes for up to four out of five Missourians and harm our state’s economy,” the Missouri Budget Project states.

Nationally, many economists remark on a current K-shaped economy – growth in spending among wealthy Americans while poorer ones pull back, as defined in a February report by Axios. However, that publication questions the narrative, noting that the richest 20% of households have steadily accounted for 40% of consumer spending for the past quarter century, including 2025, while the bottom 20% reliably accounts for 9% of spending.

In addressing the audience, Branson resident Ginger Witty, a member of the League of Women Voters Tri-Lakes, said the legislation would expand the state’s sales tax from covering products to add assessments on a wide range of services, among them rent, car insurance, child care, medical services and home repairs.

Witty said Missourians at the lowest income level pay a higher portion of their income in taxes than those at the highest. She offered the example of a family earning under $21,000 and paying 9.8% on their taxes, and another earning $1.7 million per year paying only 5.7%.

In an interview before the meeting, DaVonna Williams of Missouri Jobs with Justice said the issue is an urgent one.

“There’s been a consistent, continued attack on working Missourians,” she said. “This income tax proposal is sort of the straw.”

She cited other issues, like repealing abortion rights and paid sick leave and gerrymandering legislative districts.

Williams said the consortium of organizations are proposing what they call the people’s budget – not necessarily a tangible document with line items, but a framework that reflects what working Missourians want legislators to invest in, like fair wages, housing stability and reproductive access.

“Businesses need to think about who shops at their businesses: Missourians,” said Mar Brichacek of Abortion Action Missouri, also in a pre-meeting interview. “We shop at your businesses, but if we can’t afford health care or we don’t have paid sick leave, we can’t come shop at your business. How this tax budget would impact us is our ability to put money back into our communities.”

Williams added that working Missourians may find increased sales taxes to be a burden they can’t shoulder, meaning an outward migration could result.

“Workers drive the economy,” she said.

Organizers said they invited southwest Missouri area legislators, including three senators – Curtis Trent, District 20; Mike Moon, District 29; and Lincoln Hough, District 30 – as well as eight representatives, comprising Bishop Davison, District 130; Bill Owen, District 131; Jeremy Dean, District 132; Melanie Stinnett, District 133; Alex Riley, District 134; Betsy Fogle, District 135; Stephanie Hein, District 136; and Darrin Chappell, District 137.

Only Dean and Fogle attended.

Kehoe made elimination of the state income tax a campaign issue leading up to his election, and in January's State of the State address proposed putting the question of a five-year phase-out of income taxes to voters.