Senator skips override attempt, wants full tax reform next year

State Sen. Bob Dixon passed on the chance Wednesday to win an override vote on tax law changes he sponsored last spring.

Instead, he told colleagues, they need to focus on a more sweeping rewrite of Missouri's tax laws.

"Senate Bill 584 started out as a targeted treatment for a specific ill - a treatment for a misinterpretation, a misuse of our tax code," Dixon, R-Springfield, explained. "Ultimately, Senate Bill 584 only dealt with symptoms of an ailing tax code.

"If a doctor merely addresses a patient's symptoms but fails to recognize and treat the root cause of an illness, the patient may still perish."

Dixon warned that an "antiquated, outdated tax code undermines the overall health of our state, our local governments, our schools and our future."

He said lawmakers can deal with its problems on a piece-meal basis "or we can embrace a larger and a more challenging task."

When the Legislature returns in January, Dixon intends to pursue proposals to "increase transparency and accountability in tax collection, making certain that the Department of Revenue finally administers our tax code in a predictable and a consistent manner," and to "provide greater clarity in our tax law, with a well-coordinated, comprehensive review and revision of state tax code."

Dixon, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and helped lead the effort the last couple of years to revise the state's criminal code, said the same "bipartisan, policy focused manner contrary to conventional wisdom" can change the tax laws, too.

"Those who say that it is too hard, or cannot be done, have given up already," he said. "We should not allow political timidity to deter us from our duty to act before individual taxpayers and job creators pay the price for inaction. ...

"Honest taxpayers should not feel like participants in the "Hunger Games.'"