Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, February 2014.

Topeka ? Wage earners in Kansas will start seeing slightly smaller paychecks starting this week, and people who smoke e-cigarettes will start paying new taxes as well.

Those are just some of the new state laws in Kansas that took effect July 1, the first day of the 2018 fiscal year.

The new tax law is the most visible and most controversial of those new laws. After an election in 2016 that saw many of Gov. Sam Brownback’s conservative allies defeated, the new, more moderate Legislature this year reversed course on the sweeping income tax cuts that he championed in 2012, returning the state to a three-bracket tax structure with rates higher than they were before, but still lower than the pre-2012 tax rates.

For most wage earners whose employers withhold income taxes, the new law will mean smaller net paychecks because employers are required to start withholding at the new, higher rates starting July 1.

In a separate tax bill that received less public notice, lawmakers also imposed a new tax on electronic cigarettes.

In 2015, the Legislature passed a law that imposed a tax of 20 cents per milliliter of “consumable material” in e-cigarettes. That tax was supposed to have taken effect Jan. 1, but it was delayed six months because the Kansas Department of Revenue had not put together forms and regulations spelling out how retailers were supposed to collect the tax and when and how they should remit it to the state.

Amid that delay, the Kansas Vapers Association, which represents e-cigarette retailers, pushed for a change to tax only the nicotine content of the vaping substance. The tobacco industry, however, objected to that because other tobacco products are taxed by volume, not nicotine content.

In the end, lawmakers settled on a lower, 5-cent per milliliter tax.

In addition to the new tax laws, a new school finance system also took effect July 1, although that law is still under review by the Kansas Supreme Court.

And the concealed carrying of firearms in most municipal buildings as well as college and university campuses became legal statewide, unless the governing body that controls those buildings provides adequate security, including metal detectors and armed guards, to make sure nobody can bring a weapon into those buildings.

Other new laws that took effect July 1 include:

• A new crime of “aggravated domestic battery,” a severity level 7 person felony, is defined as knowingly trying to choke, strangle or impede the normal breathing of a family member or household member. It also covers individuals with whom the offender has been involved in a dating relationship.

• Illegal possession of drug paraphernalia is reduced to a class B misdemeanor instead of class A. That cuts the potential jail sentence for a conviction in half, to just six months.

• The crime of burglary of a dwelling with intent to commit a felony, theft, or sexually motivated crime is now a more severe, level 7 person felony instead of a nonperson felony. Depending on a defendant’s criminal history, that change could result in a sentence of up to 34 months instead of 14 months and presumptive probation.

• Expungement of arrest records: As of July 1, if a person has been arrested as a result of mistaken identity and taken into custody, but is never charged or the charges are dropped, the person is entitled to have all state and federal records of that arrest expunged.

• The “Law Enforcement Protection Act” provides enhanced penalties for felony crimes committed against law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties, or due to their status as law enforcement officers.

• Custodial interrogations: starting July 1, law enforcement agencies are required to adopt detailed policies on the electronic recording of interrogations, and those policies must be implemented starting July 1, 2018.