Kansas House of Representatives
40th District
Volume 2012, Issue 9: March 5 - 9, 2012
In This Issue
- Kansas Adopts the Honor & Remember Flag
- Property Tax Relief – Maybe this Time!
- Income Tax Debate
- Kansas Taxes on Civil Servants and the Military
- Keep in Touch
Kansas Adopts the Honor and Remember Flag
This was a busy and emotional week in Topeka. Committees were busy
pushing through hearings and passing our bills, and there was some good
debate in the House Chambers. The Leavenworth/Lansing Chamber of
Commerce Leadership Class and representatives of our Leavenworth Virtual
School, Parents as Teachers, St Vincent Clinic, and St John's Hospital
were among some of the visitors this week. On Thursday we had some
very special visitors here to witness Kansas' adoption of the Honor &
Remember Flag. Kansas families of the fallen, veterans, the Patriot
Guard, and representatives of the Survivor Outreach Services office on
Fort Leavenworth joined Mr. George Lutz, a Gold Star father and creator
of the Honor and Remember Flag, in the House and Senate Chambers to hear
the reading and unanimous voice vote of HR6014 and SR1832. The Governor
presented them with a Kansas flag that was flown over the Capitol on
Thursday in honor of the occasion. Mr. Lutz explained why he created
the flag to the Governor by saying, "The Honor and Remember Flag is a
symbol of gratitude when there are no words to say. It replaces no
other flag and it flies below any flag that it flies with because it is
the foundation of all service – love of country." Kansas became the
tenth state to adopt this symbol.
Property Tax Relief -- Maybe this Time!
On Friday the House debated a new, but very familiar property tax bill,
HB2609. This bill does two things. First, it provides $90 million to
local governments for the next two years to lower their property taxes.
Second, it requires municipalities to lower their mill levy to match the
same amount of any rise in property valuation to avoid "property tax
creep." The municipalities may still raise the mill levy if needed
through a resolution or ordinance, if they provide notification in the
local newspapers to inform the tax payers of the increase and the
reason.
Income Tax Debate
SB177 will be debated this week in the House. Toward the beginning of
the session, the Governor announced his plan for a new income tax
bracket system and SB177 is a combination of the Governor's plan and
the House Republican plan. The major components of the bill are:
- A formula for reducing the tax rate of the current 3 brackets. It
would only kick in with any revenue increase in excess of 2%. It does
not require an ending balance, unlike the Governor's plan.
- An exemption of LLC's, Subchapter S corporations, and sole
proprietorships from taxes.
- An addition of 23 more counties to the ROZ (Rural Opportunity Zones)
which would exempt a person from income tax if they moved there from
another state, bringing ROZs to 73 of the 105 Kansas counties.
- The end the refund of many income tax credits (Earned Income Tax
Credit, food sales tax rebates, community service, farm
net-operating-loss carryback, employer child day care assistance,
declared disaster capital investment, disabled access, historic site
contribution, individual development account, regional foundation
contribution, small employer health care, telecommunications and
railroad machinery and equipment).
- The elimination of the two-year tax exemption for oil production in
excess of 250 barrels per day or more for new drilling.
- The diversion of $351 million from the Highway Fund to cover income
tax revenues lost, with reimbursement over 5 years in installment
payments from State General Fund starting in 2016.
- The increase of the standard deduction for head of household from
$4500 to $9000 in 2014.
Kansas Taxes on Civil Servants and the Military
Thursday the House debated HB2480, which is the bill that would tax the
federal civil service and military retirement Thrift Savings Program
(TSP) distributions. The proponents gave a variety of reasons for this
bill saying things such as: this was only a technical fix or this would
make Kansas compliant with federal law or this would make Kansas law the
same as federal law. This bill was originally sent to the consent
calendar, where it would have passed in three days with no debate. I
objected and had it removed from the consent calendar and sure enough,
it was evident that there was no consent on this bill or even much
understanding of retirement and how it is taxed in Kansas. Changing the
law from saying "benefits in whatever form" to "defined
benefits" is a policy change and anything but "just a technical
fix." The statements that this bill would make us compliant with or
the same as federal law are not accurate because years ago, Kansas
decided to exempt all government retirement rather than tax it all.
Conversely, under federal tax law, it is all taxed. By making only one
of the three parts of the federal retirement system taxable, we would
not be the same as the federal law and there is no issue of compliance
with federal law as this is Kansas law we are debating. So, after quite
a bit of debate back and forth and many questions on how retirement is
taxed, I made a motion to send the bill back to the House Taxation
Committee so that the House could do further research before voting to
raise taxes on military and civil servant retirement benefits. The
motion passed and the bill went back to committee.
This week the House will be debating HB2769, a bill that deals with
property taxes on military installations. Now that the Department of
Defense has hired private companies to build and manage the housing on
military installations, there is a question of property tax on the
buildings. The federal government is exempt from state property tax,
but the private companies that own the new houses are not. HB2769 would
exempt these companies in Kansas. This Bill was requested by the
Governor's Military Council in light of looming Defense Department
budget cuts and the likely rise in housing costs to the Department of
Defense if taxes must be paid on the houses.
Keep in Touch
You can track my activities on my website www.meier4kansas.com, my
FaceBook page www.facebook.com/Meier4Kansas, and Twitter
www.twitter.com/melaniemeier. I am privileged and honored to be your
voice in the Kansas Capitol.
If I can ever be of assistance to you, please feel free to contact me at
home or in Topeka. My office is still in the Docking State Office
Building on the 7th Floor, Room 722. To write to me, my office address
is Kansas State Capitol, Topeka, KS 66612. You can also reach me at
(785) 296-7668 or call the legislative hotline at 1-800-432-3924 to
leave a message for me. Additionally, you can e-mail me at
melanie.meier@house.ks.gov. You can also follow the legislative session
online at www.kslegislature.org.
If you need to directly contact a particular agency in state government,
you can find useful telephone numbers online at
http://da.state.ks.us/phonebook.
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