By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
An effort is underway at the Missouri Capitol to keep the taxman from grabbing a piece of your stimulus check.
Congress authorized $1,200 economic stimulus checks to every taxpayer making $75,000 or less; $2,400 for couples making $150,000 or less. Couples with dependent children get $500 per child. It is all part of the package Congress approved to help an economy rocked by the coronavirus pandemic.
Missouri is one of only six states that considers that extra money taxable.
That, according to state Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer of Parkville, is wrong.
Luetkemeyer says he inquired with the fine folks at the Missouri Department of Revenue about just how much of a chunk could be taken out.
“And they estimated that for people who are receiving those checks who will be taxed on them, it would be up to $56 per $1,200 for each individual that’s receiving those checks,” Luetkemeyer tells St. Joseph Post.
Luetkemeyer insists this is simple: the state shouldn’t tax those checks.
“In the midst of this pandemic that we’re in right now, where people have lost their jobs, we have record unemployment, people are hurting right now, they are struggling to make ends meet, that we need to make sure that all that money is staying in the pocket of Missouri working families,” Luetkemeyer says.
The state would be giving up approximately $35 million if the legislature approves Luetkemeyer’s measure to make the checks tax free, but Luetkemeyer says the state shouldn’t receive a windfall off of checks meant to ease economic suffering.
With time running out on this disrupted legislative session, Luetkemeyer is being creative in attempting to pass his proposal. He says he is attaching it to whatever bill could possibly carry such an amendment.
He says it has been well received judging from the vote when he attached it to a bill dealing with taxation.
“Even though we just did a voice vote to let the amendment on, my suspicion is that whenever a bill comes back with that provision that I offered on it and it comes to a full vote in the Senate my expectation is that it will enjoy broad bipartisan support and potentially pass the Senate chamber unanimously.”
The Missouri legislative session ends at the end of Friday, May 15th.