For Immediate Release: July 1, 2022
Potential Special Session on Taxes May Be Opportunity to Fix Missouri’s Upside-Down Tax System
Statement from Amy Blouin, President & CEO, Missouri Budget Project
We applaud Governor Parson’s veto of HB 2090, the ill-conceived tax credit proposal that left out the very Missourians who need it most, and we look forward to working with policymakers to strengthen Missouri’s tax structure while protecting the critical public services that all Missourians rely on.
Overall, Missouri’s tax structure is regressive – meaning the lower your earnings, the more you pay in state and local taxes as a share of what you make. According to the most recent analysis, Missouri families in the bottom quintile of income pay 9.9% of their income in state and local taxes, compared to just 6.2% for the wealthiest 1% of families.
A special session could be an opportunity to right this injustice, so that the responsibility for providing services to Missourians doesn’t fall disproportionately on low- and middle-income Missourians – but the devil will be in the details.
While currently Missouri’s budget is in good shape (largely because of federal efforts to help state economies weather the pandemic), our state has repeatedly cut its support for education, public health, and many other state services over the last decades, and already has tax cuts scheduled to go into effect.
Missourians deserve state tax policies that address the upside-down nature of the overall tax structure, while ensuring the resources necessary for the vital public services that provide the foundation for our families, communities, and economy to thrive.
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