Financier Rex Sinquefield's "Let Voter's Decide" is under fire, accused of using erroneous data to justify its call for eliminating the state income tax and replacing it with higher sales tax.
As the Columbia Tribune reported Sunday, Let Voter's Decide recently published a report on its website written in conjunction with ALEC and economist Arthur Laffer that suggests Missourians wouldn't be hurt by a tax change because they currently pay seven percent of their income in state taxes.
That's incorrect.
The Missouri income tax is actually six percent. If you live or work in the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City, you pay a local earnings tax of one percent, which adds up to a seven percent tax on income. But that only applies to a minority of Missourians.
"That is not a state measure," Jim Moody, a former state Commissioner of Administration and critic of Sinquefield's proposal, told the Tribune. "The only reason they would include that is to make it look higher, and it is not accurate."
Moody has his own prediction: He says that Sinquefield's fair tax would bankrupt the state and raise state sales taxes from 4.225 percent to over 9 cents per dollar.
