Our Opinion: Special session for a not-so-special cause

Are you holding off on purchasing a vehicle because you can’t use the sale/trade of multiple vehicles to offset sales tax for the new one?

If you said “yes,” the Missouri Legislature is holding a special session for you. If, like us, you said “no,” you might be wondering why the matter is so pressing.

This became an issue when the Missouri Supreme Court in June ruled consumers can only count the money earned from selling one vehicle as a tax credit against the sales tax of a replacement car, according to an Associated Press story that we published Thursday.

Previously, revenue officials allowed people to count earnings from selling multiple vehicles against the sales tax of a replacement car, the AP reported.

Gov. Mike Parson called the special session to run concurrently with the annual veto session, which begins Sept. 9. That short session is for lawmakers to consider overriding vetoes made by the governor.

In a statement, Parson said: “After reviewing the court’s decision, we’ve decided to call a special session because it’s simply the right thing to do for the people of our state,” Parson said in a statement. “The enforcement of this decision would create a financial burden on Missouri taxpayers and unnecessary government red tape that we can proactively prevent.”

We don’t disagree making this law change is the right thing to do. We’re all for letting Missourians keep as much of their hard-earned money as possible.

But why is this subject matter for a special session? This seems like more of a run-of-the mill issue than an emergency that needs to be dealt with immediately.

January isn’t that far away. Lawmakers could just as easily deal with the issue then.

In the meantime, we doubt there would be a tidal wave of car buyers looking to use multiple vehicles to offset the sales tax from another vehicle purchase. Likewise, we don’t believe it’s going to cause a bombshell to our state’s economy because people are holding off on vehicle purchases because of the issue.

What it does have the potential to do is drag out a veto session that might have been extremely short, and, in doing so, essentially pay lawmakers overtime for tackling the issue.

News Tribune