Missouri wants to replace the income tax with a sales tax so they can be on the same level as Florida and Tennessee…but do they not realize that their two largest cities are next to another state? As a Kansan, I welcome this move as OUR state sales tax coffers will increase with Missourians coming across the state line to save a little money on sales taxes.
That was my parents. My mother was from a rural area outside of a town split by the Kentucky-Tennessee state line. They moved there when they retired. They lived on the TN side, with no income tax, and did grocery shopping on the KY side, with no sales tax on groceries.
Keep us updated. Missouri might be a ‘no income tax’ state we would consider moving to. None of the others interest us.
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Most people in St. Louis live over an hour away to a place to shop in Illinois.
You think people are going to east St. Louis to shop?
Funny timing for this thread.
I have been pretty open on this site about my disdain for the Missouri GOP.
But, yesterday I received an unsolicited text from the Missouri House Republican Campaign Committee to gauge my interest in running for office.
I would actually be interested, but I cannot justify quitting my job to take a severe pay cut for a 5 month job.
Okay…so most won’t. You used to live in MIssion. Would people in KC make the short drive to Mission, Overland Park, Leawood, or Prairie Village to shop and dine? East St Louis they ain’t. Plus, in 2030 lots of Missourians, despite their bitching, will be making the drive to Kansas to attend a Chiefs game and maybe do a litle shopping at the Legends after the game.
Depends on gas prices. I used to drive to Kansas all the time when I lived in Missouri because the shopping was better.
Then you will want to stay near the Kansas side. Maybe a rural area though. Kansas doesn’t have a state sales tax on groceries, but cities can put a sales tax on them The thing his that there might be a bit of a drive - as there aren’t a lot of border towns along the state line. But a place like Cleveland MO and Louisburg KS are only 8 miles apart, and you are still close to the KC area for medical facilities.
Oregon has income tax but no sales tax. Many of the cities are starved for funds.
Sales tax seems to be the better way to do it.
Which is why you see so many Oregon license plates around military installations.
I prefer consumption taxes to income taxes. The income tax here is insane.
That’s consistent with a consumption tax philosophy.
My wife has a cousin who lives in Vancouver, Washington who does most of her shopping in Oregon.
I think if you have more local business, no sales tax could drive economic growth. The profits would stay and be spent locally but when it’s mega corps, it doesn’t really benefit the community. The profits go elsewhere.
People cant avoid the sales taxes on their deliveries.
How far will you drive to save a few bucks on your weekly supermarket goods? I live in rural area where the sales taxes are 6.5% at my house. The local small town is 10% and soon to be 11%. The place I work is 8.5%.
I shop the least in the small town where I live. I typically do major shopping closer to where I work on my drive home. I prefer to buy online and have it shipped to my house.
I have been known to drive 20-30 miles to buy larger ticket items if the sales taxes are several percent cheaper. I try and not shop at the local grocery and lumber store because their prices are already high then you pay a few % higher in sales taxes. Sure I’m not going to make an unnecessary 30 mile drive to save $10 but I might if I am going to go save $50.
Just curious, but why would that be? Isn’t it the states with no income tax that military like to claim residency?
Side comment: When I was on active duty in the military I was stationed in California but retained Pennsylvania residency. Pennsylvania would tax military pay if you were a resident stationed inside the state but not of you were stationed outside of it. You saw my Pennsylvania plate on my car back then.
Now, to be fair, two things.
- This proposal does give the choice to the voters, so it is not just the idiots in Jeff City that will be making the decisions.
- At first glance, amazingly the Missouri GOP may have done a decent job with this. The elimination is dependent upon revenue being created by sales tax, it is not automatic. It is results driven.
Been a long time since I looked into it, but if I remember right, if you tagged your car in Oregon, no matter where you bought it you didn’t have to pay sales tax on it, and all you needed was a PO Box. I don’t know if you could keep your residency in your home state to do this or not.
Side-side comment: Nebraska had a law that active duty did not have to renew their drivers license as long as they had an active duty Military ID. I got out when I was 26, and still had my original drivers license from when I was 16.
You buy it and then register in Oregon. When I bought my car I had a missouri drivers license but my car was purchased and registered in oregon.
If you buy the car in Oregon then register in another state, they normally make you pay taxes.
I bought my tesla in Illinois but registered in Missouri. So I paid the taxes in Missouri. I had to sign some form to do it.
That was during covid when I abandoned chicago because of all the rules.
Same when you buy in Kansas.
That explanation makes sense, and it has nothing to do with the military. I don’t know Oregon’s income tax laws relating to the military in particular. In general, though, I know that military generally like to declare residency in states with no income tax. When I was on active duty they used to joke that half the military resided in Florida and Texas.
As a reverse example, at the same time in the early 1990s Connecticut, which only had a sales tax up to that time, enacted a state income tax. One of my military co-workers at the time was a Connecticut resident and was not all that happy when she suddenly had to pay Connecticut income tax.
I remember that Pennsylvania was a rarity. They were first taking Pennsylvania tax out of my check. However, one sergeant from my ROTC unit who was also a Pennsylvania resident had told me about how Pennsylvania worked and how I would not have to pay any state tax as long as I was not stationed in the state. The guy at the finance office looked it up and saw that there were three states with that tax treatment, Pennsylvania being one of them. They stopped taking state tax out of my check then.
It was the same for me in the early 1990s, and I was advised that I did not need to renew my license. I am assuming that will not fly today. Still, even then I felt uncomfortable not having a current drivers license or auto registration, and the Pennsylvania DMV allowed me to renew both with a California address too.
Car registration and income taxes are unrelated. I can have car registered in every state and still call Nevada my home state.
Technically cars need to be registered in the state they parked in