Kansas lawmakers are wrestling with a budget deficit and looking at a wide range of tax proposals to help cover the shortfall. A House committee considered the merits of a flat tax Monday, but the bills don’t seem to have much support.
The plans would eliminate tax brackets, so there would only be one Kansas income tax rate. One bill would set that at 3.9 percent, the other at 5 percent.
The think tank the Kansas Policy Institute supported some of the ideas, because there would overall be less income taxes paid by Kansans. They’d like to see some changes so no one would pay more.
Heidi Holliday, with the Kansas Center for Economic Growth, opposed both plans because she says they’d raise the amount paid by low-income Kansans.
“It doesn’t solve the state’s fiscal woes. It also ends up hurting hardworking Kansas families,” says Holliday.
One of the bills had no supporters. With such little enthusiasm, the chairman of the House tax committee says it’s unlikely the plans will go anywhere.
Stephen Koranda reports: