Editorial: Taxing food

Kansas should make sure state lawmakers don’t back out of their promise to lower the sales tax rate on groceries.

Sales tax, even more than other taxes, seems to move in only one direction: up.

And it just happened again.

True, the sales tax in Kansas went down a tiny bit a couple of years ago — but only briefly. Kansas raised its sales tax from 5.3 percent to 6.3 percent in 2010 to help the state weather the national recession, but the tax was set to drop to 5.7 percent in 2013. When 2013 rolled around, the state decided it couldn’t afford to drop the tax to 5.7 percent, so it dropped it to 6.15 percent instead. By this year, the state finances were looking even worse, so legislators and the governor agreed to raise the tax to 6.5 percent. So much for the decrease.

The new tax took effect this week. You may have noticed that your coffee cost a penny or two more, but for most of us, it won’t be a noticeable change — unless you buy a car or some other big-ticket item. Still, sales tax is considered one of the most regressive taxes, especially in Kansas, which still charges the full sales tax on groceries. A family that spends $100 a week on groceries will pay an extra $18.20 in sales tax in a year. Since most families spend a lot more than $100 a week, the total tax will be significantly higher. For many Kansans, that’s not a big amount, but for some families, even $18.20 would allow them to put another meal or two on the table.

In the closing days of this year’s session, legislators made what seemed like a pretty cynical decision to delay approval of a lower sales tax rate on groceries until next year. Either way, they said, the lower rate wouldn’t go into effect until July 2016 and delaying the vote would provide what one lawmaker called “a nice positive thing to vote on” next January or February.

That may be nice for legislators, but many Kansans, being painfully aware of lawmakers’ history of changing their minds, probably would have been happier to already have a law lowering the food sales tax on the books.

It seems likely that, by the time the 2016 legislative session begins, the state will be facing a host of new and ongoing financial issues. Kansans should make sure the reduction in the food sales tax doesn’t get lost in that shuffle.