If you are a retired Missouri educator, you already fought for relief from state income tax on your retirement. Amendment 5 could take it all away.
If state and local revenue both get tighter at the same time, who makes up the difference for our schools?
Weigh the appeal of ending the income tax against leaning on one revenue source, losing your direct tax vote for five years, and locking it all into the Constitution.
Missouri is following Kansas’ disastrous lead when it comes to playing games with taxes, and it can’t be easily fixed when it fails.
Amendment 5 is about who decides. For five years, it moves tax decisions from voters to the legislature, eliminating your voice.
“Revenue-neutral” is a forecast — the kind Missouri just struggled to pin down on a smaller change and failed to even get close to calculating properly.
A mix of taxes protects schools because taxes fail at different times. Amendment 5 bets everything on just one tax and places a huge bet on hope.
On August 4, Missourians vote on Amendment 5. It sounds simple — phase out the state income tax. It’s far riskier than it seems.