JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - A House committee has voted along partisan lines to advance a proposal eliminating Missouri's income taxes and replacing it with a higher sales tax.
The vote Wednesday by the House Tax Reform Committee marked the first step toward moving the so-called "Fair Tax" proposal to the 2012 statewide ballot. All the Republicans on the committee voted for the measure and all the Democrats opposed it.
But Committee Chairman Doug Funderburk, of St. Charles, acknowledged that he and some other Republicans still have concerns about the financial impact of the proposal.
The measure would phase out the state's income tax by January 2019 and replace it with a higher sales tax charged on a wider variety of goods and services. The measure would cap the state sales tax at 7 percent.