Missouri’s used car selling Governor signed the House Joint Resolution authorizing the Constitutional Amendment ballot measure to kill the individual income tax. While Governor Mike Kehoe has the option to put it on the August Primary or November General Election ballot, the measure will go before voters this year.
As they do, the legislature’s resolution included the ballot language.
“Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:
● Phase-out the individual income tax based on revenue growth;
● Reduce personal property and other local taxes when local revenues increase;
● Modify the sales and use tax to eliminate income tax and reduce local taxes; and
● Protect local funding for public schools and other purposes?”
You know, that language could be more accurate.
How about my version…
“Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:
● Permanently eliminate the individual income tax;
● Require reductions in personal property and other local taxes if those revenues increase;
● Eliminate constitutional restrictions to increase sales and use taxes on goods and services; and
● Protect local funding for public schools from some funding cuts?”
The actual proposal is very short, just three pages even with that ballot language.
Why?
In an example of extreme cowardice, the current House of Representatives and Senate left the details on how to cover up the murder of the income tax to their successors: the General Assemblies taking office in January 2027, January 2029 and January, 2031 must make the actual changes with no guidance from the ballot measure except that their actions ought to be “revenue neutral.”
That, of course, is impossible.
The first problem is that all of Missouri’s revenue sources defy clean predictions. Sales tax and, for now, income tax go down in a recession. Earnings drop, then spending drops. Sales tax receipts also drop when working Missourians have to spend a greater portion of their income on rent/mortgage, gasoline, prescriptions and other things not subject (for now) to sales tax.
Second, well, the process of crafting a state budget is very long. This November and December the governor’s cabinet will prepare their budgets for Fiscal Tear 2028 which will run from July 1, 2027 till June 30, 2028.
So, bureaucrats in late 2026 have to hit on the button what money Missouri will get at the end of June 2028. Miss high or low and the plan is no longer revenue neutral.
Another part of the income tax ballot measure suspends Title X (a.k.a. the Hancock Amendment) for that five year transition window, During that period voters won’t get to decide any state wide tax increase, even one as revolutionary as adding a sales tax to home purchases. The legislature and governor can act without our support.
Missouri voters will face a handful – or more – of ballot measures this year. Digging into details on all of them will require a lot of effort. That’s why the ballot language, the only packaging many citizens will see, becomes critical. Stay tuned.
Glenn Koenen