SB 58 Testimony from Kansas Taxpayers Network

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More testimony opposing SB 58, the bill to allow Sedgwick County to increase its sales tax to pay for the downtown arena.


Testimony Opposing SB 58
By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director, Kansas Taxpayers Network

SB 58 is a flawed bill that should either be re-drafted or defeated in its current form, Let me outline the major problems with this legislation.

1) This bill does not address the serious flaws already contained within KSA 12 187 that cry out for correction. This is a grossly non uniform statute that should be made, uniform covering all local government units. Today, cities may, and some already have, opt out of this statute using their home rule powers because of this statute’s non uniform condition. County home rule requires a change in statutes for the lid on local sales taxes (see KSA 19 101a). At some point in time the cities may opt out of this statute in a way that negates any requirement for voter approval at an election. It will be a sad day for Kansas government when the voter approval requirement within this statute gets voided within a municipality. This is only a matter of when, not a matter of if

It may surprise this committee that the Kansas Taxpayers Network (KTN) supports removing this local sales tax Ed under limited circumstances. The circumstances are straightforward. KTN strongly supports requiring voter approval before taxes are raised. KTN has repeatedly testified in front of both legislative tax committees in support of this principle. We strongly urge this committee to broaden this voter approval requirement to extend to city, county, and local property tax millage hikes. KTN would also like to see a requirement added to this statute that would extend this principle of voter approval of tax hikes to extend to all local taxes. Currently, Missouri, Colorado, and Oklahoma require voter approval before property taxes can be raised in those three states. In Colorado and Missouri this requirement for voter approval currently covers all local taxes.

This would correct the pro tax raising bias that exists in current law. Local sales tax hike proponents raise local sales taxes in a way I’ll describe ‘in three words: “carrot and stick.” The “carrot” approach to raising sales taxes is how Sedgwick County originally got their 1 cent local sales tax 20 years ago, “Vote for this local sales tax and we’ll lower your property tax.” That’s how Pottawatomie County got their local sales tax raised last year.

The “stick” approach was used by arena proponents in narrowly getting voter approval during the advisory vote November 2, 2004 in Sedgwick County. “If you don’t vote for this temporary sales tax hike we’ll raise your property taxes.” Arena proponents’ flyers and advertising said, “Vote No. And a 20 year property tax buys a facelift for the aging Kansas Coliseum… ” So it all comes down to: higher sales or higher property taxes would the condemned prefer to be hung or shot?

2) SB 58 is a slap in the face for taxpayers by making an advisory vote retroactively into a binding vote. This is an affront to the rule of law. The county knew they had no authority to raise the local sales tax under current state law. Now they want you to retroactively provide them with this approval. I wrote an editorial ‘in the Wichita Eagle last August that publicly informed them that they had no legal authority under Kansas law to impose this tax. They arrogantly proceeded anyway and now want the legislature to grant retroactive authorization.

Now I’m not saying that you can’t add retroactivity into Kansas tax law. That has occurred in the past nationally and fairly recently. In 1993 then President Clinton proposed adding retroactive provisions to federal tax code as part of his tax raising bill. This was enacted, it was litigated and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that retroactive tax law was constitutional. This was bad federal tax law in 1993 and Kansas should not adopt this retroactively principle in 2005.

Now let me demonstrate how a taxpayer would be a second class citizen in Kansas if you enact SB 58 in its current form. If I decided as a citizen that I would no longer be bound by the portions of the tax law I’d like to see changed, and then proceeded to ignore the law, I would be in violation of the law and could be penalized under this law. Apparently, that is not a problem if the legal entity happens to be a local government, like Sedgwick County in Kansas. If I then had the arrogance to proceed to ask you as legislators to retroactively change state law to help me out of my own violation of state law, you would not take my request seriously. Today, you are taking the county’s request very seriously and if recent press reports are correct, a majority of you have already decided to vote for this bill. If this bill passes it will clearly establish the fact that taxpayers are second or perhaps even third class citizens behind local units of government in Kansas.

This bill would be a gross violation of the rule of law in this state. In fact, the legislature rarely provides retroactive provisions in state law and usually enacts statutes that only take effect at a future date.

3) Since the November 2 vote was advisory *in nature, the fact that arena opponents were outspent is an abuse of taxpayer funds but is not critical under current Kansas law. Arena opponents raised over $20,000 in private funds in the unsuccessful advisory election November 2, 2004. We were outspent by a greater than 2 to I margin by city, county, and state funded tax dollars spent by tax funded organizations.

This included city property taxes, city hotel/motel taxes, county tax funds, and state turnpike and regents tax dollars. This statute should be amended to ban the use of state and local tax funds in tax referendum elections. It is now clear that Kansas has already descended upon the slippery slope where tax dollars are being spent to promote higher taxes.

4) If the legislature does not act upon SB 58 or any similar legislation then one of two events will occur. The county could follow the usual practice and get KSA 12 187 changed so a binding election could occur. The city of Wichita, which also strongly backs this tax hike, could exercise their home rule option in this matter or also seek a change in this statute to hold a binding election in the future. The rule of law could be preserved even if this important principle is contained within this flawed and non uniform statute.

SB 58 is flawed and should be rejected by this committee. KTN has intentionally not discussed the merits of the downtown arena since that is an issue for a binding election and not for this committee or the legislature to consider. The legislature must make state law for all the citizens and all of the local units. SB 5 8 makes a bad statute worse.

A better approach would be to extend the principle of voter approval of local sales taxes to cover all local taxes in Kansas. Then you could remove the caps, terminate the “carrot and sticks,” tax raising strategy, delete the non uniformities, and allow the Kansas economy to begin to be able to compete with our neighboring states that have already empowered their citizens with mandatory tax referendums at the ballot box.

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