Gov. Nixon says he's going to veto a bill cutting taxes for Missouri's working families - clearing the way for legislators to set things right by overriding it.
Basically, Senate Bill 509 would reduce the state tax on personal income by 0.5 percent over a period of years and allow a deduction on business income beginning in 2017. Zero-point-five percent isn't a lot, but it would make a big difference not just to families but also to small businesses.
I'm the state director of the National Federation of Independent Business. Our members overwhelmingly supported S.B. 509 because most of them pay taxes on their business income at the personal tax rate. That's because most small businesses are organized as "pass-through entities." One-owner businesses, partnerships, LLCs and S corporations don't pay income tax; instead, the owners are taxed individually on any business income.
The governor has said that the only entities to benefit from a tax reduction for pass through businesses are lawyers and lobbyist, which is bunk and an insult to practically every Main Street company in Missouri. These pass-through entities the governor is trying to throw under the bus include everything from body shops and hair salons to pharmacies and shoe stores.
When you reduce taxes on small businesses, you make it easier for them to grow and expand and create jobs.
There's a real sense of uncertainty these days in the small-business community. There's confusion and concern over the Affordable Care Act, a tidal wave of new rules and regulations flowing out of Washington and the very real possibility that employers will have to reduce hours or hire fewer people if Congress raises the federal minimum wage.
S.B. 509 would help eliminate at least some of that uncertainty and bring some much-needed relief to Main Street.
He claims the bill is written in such a way that it would inadvertently eliminate 97 percent of all individual income tax collections in the state of Missouri. If that happens, prisons would have to close, schools would be shuttered and teachers would lose their jobs.
Gov. Nixon says allowing the bill to become law would create "a fiscal disaster" and leave Missouri "unable to meet even the most basic obligations to its people."
I say that's baloney.
So, essentially, does former state Supreme Court Chief Justice William Ray Price Jr. He said in a letter to Senate President Tom Dempsey that was released to the media, Price said a careful reading of the entire bill shows it would not, in fact, eliminate 97 percent of Missouri's personal income taxes but merely calls for a reduction in the rate.
On behalf of NFIB/Missouri's 8,700 small-business members, I'm asking the General Assembly to stand up against the governor and override his veto. I can't believe that a state willing to offer a $1.7 billion incentive package to a multinational corporation such as Boeing would deny a tax cut to the mom-and-pop businesses that make our economy - and our state - one of the strongest in the nation.
Brad Jones is Missouri state director of the National Federation of Independent Business. He lives in Jefferson City.