Missouri’s Amendment 5 would end state income taxes, double sales tax rates, and impose new taxes on services, including rent.

The math behind Amendment 5 does not add up.

Missouri’s income tax now brings $8.5 billion annually (two-thirds of all state revenue).

Missouri residents now pay 8.44% sales tax, on average. [The current Missouri sales tax rate is 4.225%, but additional taxing districts raise this to between 6% and 10.8%.]

Missouri’s GOP super-majority claims that each 1% increase in the sales tax rate would increase state revenue by about $1 billion, so doubling the sales tax might offset the entire income tax. But Amendment 5 also suspends the 2016 constitutional amendment which barred sales taxes on services, so they can extend sales taxes to services (like auto repair, and dental services).

But most Missouri residents live just minutes from interstate borders, and would avoid the higher sales tax by driving to another state for major retail purchases and service work. [Missouri’s densest urban areas are at its eastern and western borders.]

That leaves one viable option to close the budget gap: impose a service tax on rental payments. Rent is already the single highest household expense for working families.

A tax on rental payments would also serve the oligarchs’ goal of shifting taxes from the wealthiest to the poorest, from investors to workers.

Amendment 5 proposes a regression from a middle-class economy to a more feudal system.

I’d like to find any legitimate research on the projected revenue from doubling the sales tax rate, and for the “most plausible” services (like auto repair, dental work, hair services, and legal services), as well as for the least-popular ideas (such as taxing medical services and prescriptions, and rental payments).

I’m also aware that for Missouri workers who reside in another state, the MO income tax is collected here, but applied as a credit to their state-of-residence income taxes. Without any MO income tax, that entire amount would be paid instead to the state of residence, while the employee would not need to pay the higher Missouri sales and service staxes.

Please direct me to any appropriate resources for these projections in Missouri.

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It’s critically important for voters to understand that there are two extreme ballot initiatives on the August ballot, both placed there by the GOP supermajority legislature and governor.

Amendment 5 would eliminate the Missouri income tax, shifting two-thirds of the state’s revenue to sales taxes and new service taxes (overriding a voter measure in 2016 that banned taxes on services).

Amendment 4 would block any new citizen initiative measures by “raising the bar” to require a separate majority in all eight congressional districts. That would prevent us from repealing Amendment 5 (or re-enacting the ban on service taxes) in the future.

Amendment 4 would also essentially block the Respect Missouri Voters referendum that hundreds of thousands of voters signed this year. That measure was pushed to the November ballot (probably as Amendment 6).

Many voters who signed the RMV petition may be confused by Amendment 4 (also about the initiative process) being on the August ballot with misleading language.

The August ballot will also include two other amendments: Amendment 1 would extend a sales tax for conservation, and Amendment 2 would force Jackson County to elect its assessor.

Amendment 3, which would ban abortion (reversing Amendment 3 from the last election), was pushed to the November ballot. It could pass with a simple majority (even if Amendment 4 passes in August, raising the bar for the Respect Missouri Voters measure on the same ballot).